Murder in Orbit (16 page)

Or would have been, except that, as it turned out, the duct leading most directly to the sound was one of the ones that narrowed as it approached the room. That would have been clear enough if I had stuck with the map, instead of being so confident about following the sound of the scream.

By the time we had traveled another ten meters it became clear anyway. I simply couldn't go any farther. I had felt the plastic walls closing in on me, of course. But I had assumed that I was going to be able to make it to the end.

Wrong.

My shoulders jammed against the sides of the duct, and I just couldn't go any farther. My hip was starting to throb. And the screaming, which still hadn't let up, was beating around my ears.

The only good thing about the whole mess was that with the amount of noise coming
into
the duct, I figured no one would notice a little coming out of it. I pushed myself backward.

I heard a muffled curse from behind me. I had run into Cassie.

She grabbed my leg and gave it a yank, to warn me to slow down.

Generally, foolish pride has kept me from telling people about my hip. But when that lightning bolt of pain shot up my leg and through my skull, I did two things. First I bit my thumb to keep from screaming. And second, I promised myself not to be so secretive in the future. Pride has its price, but this was ridiculous.

We backed slowly down the tunnel. If I thought making the corners had been a problem when we were going forward, I should have reserved judgment until I had a chance to try it backward. The memory of it makes my leg twitch even now. I would have given almost anything to be able to turn around and go frontward. But the very thought of trying it made the duct seem twice as narrow as it really was.

A hiss from behind indicated that Cassie wanted to talk to me.

For a glorious instant I thought maybe I should push myself against the wall and let her work her way up so that we were face to face. It would be delightfully cozy. But we had work to do, and we might get stuck that way. Though I could think of worse ways to die, I wasn't ready to cash in my chips for the sake of a good snuggle. Yet.

I pushed against the top wall as tight as I could and looked back at her.

“What now?” she whispered.

I pressed a finger to my lips. Then I took out the map and waved it at her, so she would know I was trying to solve the problem.

The answer was fairly simple in print, though I could tell it was going to be hard on my hip. We had to go back about thirty meters, then make a sharp turn that would take us to a wider duct than the one we had first tried.

I folded the map and started moving again.

The corner was worse than I expected. The fact that once I got my head around it I could hear the screaming again didn't help matters any.

Though she didn't make a sound, I could sense Cassie's impatience. I crawled faster, trying to ignore the fire in my hip.

I could see a square of light that marked the end of the duct. Feeling a sense of relief that we were almost there, I hurried forward.

The relief died as soon as I was close enough to the baffle to see through it. The scene in the “Storage Area” was like something out of a nightmare. Five upright tanks stood at the right side of the room. Four of them held nude bodies that were exact duplicates of Hank Smollin. A maze of wires and tubes ran from each tank to a console about ten feet away.

That was the good part. Bizarre as it was, at least it verified my theory.

Much worse was the glass cage in the center of the room.

Inside it was Dr. Pieter Durkin. As I watched, he flung himself from side to side, smashing into its unbreakable walls and screaming in rage and fright. He was bleeding from at least a dozen places, and his pale blond hair was matted with blood. As I watched him tear at his own arms and legs, I realized with horror that his wounds were self-inflicted.

Standing in front of the cage were three of the remaining “Mad Scientists” of the BS Factory. I recognized the short, stocky figure of Martha Collins, the tall, distinguished-looking Charles Hulan, and the even taller Virginia Jefferson.

Dr. Collins was the first to speak after I reached the vent. “I think we should kill him now and get it over with,” she said.

I'm surprised they didn't hear my gasp of shock, even over Dr. Durkin's screams.

I started to undo the fasteners at the corners of the vent (a task that was considerably easier from the inside than it had been from the outside). I wasn't sure what I was going to do once I had the thing off; I just wanted to be ready in case I figured something out.

As it turned out, the situation was taken out of my hands. After I loosened the fourth fastener, I braced my hands against the floor of the duct and pulled myself forward as far as possible, in order to hear what Dr. Jefferson was saying in her low, competent voice.

It was about then that Cassie got impatient and gave my leg a tug, just to remind me she was still there.

It was the last straw for my hip. I felt as if someone had poured liquid fire into the socket. Bellowing in pain, I involuntarily stiffened my arms beneath me. The action caused me to shoot forward. My face smashed against the vent. With the clips undone, it easily gave way.

I tumbled out of the vent.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor, looking up at three very surprised, very angry scientists.

Chapter 24

Forbidden Research

For a moment we all just kind of stared at one another.

Dr. Collins was the first to speak.

“What the bloody hell are
you
doing here?” she asked.

I wanted to come up with some sizzlingly brilliant answer. But it was hard to think with a lump of fire where my hip should be and Dr. Durkin gibbering and screaming like a madman while he slammed himself against the glass walls of his cage.

I settled for moral outrage. “Why don't you help him?” I cried, pointing at the cage.

“Don't you think we would if we could?” said Dr. Jefferson. She reached down to give me a hand up. As soon as she let go of my arm, my hip gave way and I crumpled to the floor again. I waved her off. “Never mind,” I gasped. “It'll be better in a while.”

I looked around. To say I was confused would be putting it mildly. I thought I had finally found the villains of the situation. But all three of these people gave evidence of being genuinely concerned about what was happening to Dr. Durkin.

I nodded toward the cage. “What's going on?”

The scientists exchanged glances. “He might as well be told,” said Dr. Hulan. “He knows this much, and the whole thing is coming unraveled anyway. There's not much point in covering up now, because no matter what we do, it won't
stay
covered.”

Dr. Collins sighed. “I think you're right, Charles. The game is over.”

“Some game,” I said, glancing at Dr. Durkin.

Dr. Hulan shuddered. “Cruel as it is to say, Pieter brought that on himself. The rest of us tried to tell him that he wasn't taking sufficient precautions. Of course, that's part of the problem when you're doing research under these conditions.…”

“What conditions? This is one of the most advanced research facilities in the world!”

“Certainly it is,” said Dr. Collins. “For approved projects. But if you want to work at the real cutting edge of things, if you want to push toward something beyond what the bureaucratic imbeciles that license these facilities are willing to approve, then you end up cutting some corners.”

“You were
all
doing bootleg research?” I cried in surprise. “I thought it was just Dr. Twining.”

I had figured out what Dr. Twining was up to when I realized what had bothered me about Dr. Puckett's hands. But even then it hadn't occurred to me that the entire staff of the BS Factory would be up to their necks in the stuff.

“Not all of us,” said Dr. Collins. “Dr. Gomiri kept her nose clean. Virginia, here, did, too. The only reason she's here now is because I asked her to help us. Considering the number of times she's tried to warn us about something like this, it was pretty big of her to come.”

I turned to Dr. Jefferson. “If you're here to help, why don't you?” I glanced at Dr. Durkin and shuddered. “Who put him in that cage, anyway?” I demanded angrily.

“He locked himself in there,” said Dr. Hulan. “As soon as he knew he'd been infected. We can't anesthetize him because the last two times we tried it, the victim died immediately.”

I wondered who the last two victims had been.

Dr. Hulan continued his explanation. “And we can't take him out because we don't know how contagious he is. That cage is completely sealed. If we're lucky, what he has will stay in there with him. On the other hand, it's entirely possible this room is already contaminated—which would mean that all of us, including you, my brash young friend, could end up like that.”

“Don't be unnecessarily cruel, Charles,” said Dr. Collins.

Dr. Hulan shrugged. “It's true, and you know it.”

“It's possible. But so far as we know right now, the thing is transmitted only by direct contact with the bloodstream.”

I remembered the scene in Dr. Durkin's lab that morning.

“He's got what Ron had!” I cried. “Ron and Nancy were the last two victims!”

“Brilliant deduction,” said Dr. Hulan acidly.

I remembered that he had participated in the fight. I didn't think he had been scratched. Even so, I could imagine that he was pretty nervous about now. I would have been, in his situation. Now I understood why they had been so adamant about getting Cassie and me out of the room during that fight!

“Just what is it he's got?” I asked.

Dr. Jefferson shrugged. “Who knows? He only invented it a few days ago.”

“He was doing recombinant DNA?” I cried. This time I was truly shocked. That kind of research had been completely banned after the disaster in Chicago that killed twenty thousand people a few years earlier.

Dr. Collins nodded. “The ironic thing is, he wasn't even doing anything big, like cancer research. He was just looking for a cure for the common cold. Instead he came up with this horror.”

I hoped Cassie was still in the duct, listening to this. I didn't know how everything was going to turn out. But I had a feeling that if I lived through this, I was going to need a witness.

The main thing still puzzling me was who had killed Dr. Twining? And why? I had assumed it was because he was about to spill the beans about the forbidden research. But these three were talking about it very openly. Which must mean it wasn't one of them.

But if not them, who?

Suddenly I thought I had an answer.

“What were you doing with your results?” I asked.

Dr. Collins and Dr. Hulan looked at each other nervously.

“They were selling them to me,” said a familiar voice. “For a tidy profit, I might add.”

I sighed. I had hoped I was mistaken.

But really, it was the most logical answer. We had always joked that she was the one who really ran the BS Factory. And of course, as much as I had tried to ignore the fact, no one had been in a better position to sabotage my scooter.

Gramps always told me that letting personal feelings interfere with your detective work can be a fatal error.

Turning to face my old buddy, Millicent Carter, I hoped Gramps was wrong—at least about the fatal part.

Chapter 25

Millie

“It's unfortunate you don't think as badly as you drive, Rusty,” said Millie. “If you did, you might never have put together enough clues to get yourself into this mess.”

I shrugged. “If it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else. You couldn't have kept this hidden forever. Your trail was getting wider and wider.”

Dr. Hulan decided to interrupt. “What's the point of the gun, Millie? You don't need to be that worried. Except for poor Pieter here, nobody's done anything that's going to merit more than a slap on the wrist, and that includes you.”

“Tell that to Dr. Twining,” I said.

“What do you mean?” asked Dr. Collins.

“I mean Millie has already used that laser pistol once tonight, when Dr. Twining was about to spill the deal to me.”

Dr. Collins caught her breath. “Is he dead?” she whispered.

“Of course he's dead,” snapped Millie. “Rusty and that stupid girl would be, too, if I hadn't been thinking I could get things back under control before they reached this point. Just shows you what I get for being sentimental.”

Dr. Durkin, who had been quiet for a while, screamed and began scrabbling at the glass of his isolation cage again.

I wondered what Cassie was doing.

“Why, Millie?” asked Dr. Jefferson.

Millie shrugged. “Because some of us were indeed doing things for which we could have gotten more than a slap on the wrist. You fools thought I was passing your research on to a major corporation. Actually I was. But they weren't the only ones getting it. The really big money was coming from the South American bloc.” She smiled. “They had interesting plans for some of the information you people were generating.”

Dr. Hulan's face went red. “You betrayed us!”

Millie laughed. “You're as naive as the kid. Worse, actually, since you've been around long enough to know better.”

“Well, you won't get away with it,” said Dr. Hulan gruffly.

“Oh, no?” asked Millie. “Who's going to stop me?”

“The four of us, to begin with.”

I thought it was nice of Dr. Hulan to count me in. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to make any difference.

“You can't stop me if you're dead,” said Millie. “Which you will be, the minute you decide to move. I've already killed one person tonight. Three or four more aren't going to make that much difference.”