Kitabı oku: «At depth», sayfa 12

18. THE LONG-WAITED SUNRISE ON THE «CATALINA»

She woke up in a warm bed in a closed, windowless room. A bedside lamp with a shade was lit on the nightstand, casting a comfortable glow suitable for sleep. Kayla scanned the room, then looked under the blanket. She was wearing no clothes. She felt her arms and legs perfectly. Her skin color also looked healthy.

The door creaked open, followed by the sound of footsteps. A man of short stature and average build walked in. The stranger had thick stubble, about a centimeter long, covering his face. He was wearing something resembling work overalls.

The man said something, addressing Kayla with a piercing gaze. Unable to understand a word, she didn’t answer, only clutching the blanket tighter. The man began waving his open palms, then made a gesture indicating patience, and left.

Kayla lifted her head from the pillow, trying to figure out where she was. But not even a minute passed before another man entered the room, slightly taller than the previous one, who followed. This man was clearly in charge; this was immediately evident from his gait, his upright posture, and his stern expression with rugged features. He was wearing a light sweatshirt, an unzipped jacket, and black loose-fitting trousers. His face was also hidden under a thick beard, making it difficult to determine his age by sight.

Th The man brought a small stool, sat down near the bed, and asked:

— Parles-tu francais?

Kayla shook her head negatively.

— Espanol?

— …

— Italiano?

Kayla responded with a negative gesture again.

— English, then — the man said with some confidence.

— Yes.

The man rubbed his palms on his knees and continued:

— Do you remember what happened?

Kayla furrowed her brows, rummaging through the depths of her memory, but to no avail.

— You were drowning. We found you in the middle of the open ocean. You suffered severe hypothermia in your extremities, which is apparently why you began to slip underwater. What happened? How did you get into the open water?

Kayla glanced repeatedly between the man speaking to her and the other man standing behind him. Trying to recall events from who knows how long ago, Kayla said:

— We… our vessel was wrecked. And I… How long have I been here?

The man looked at the watch on his left wrist.

— About thirty hours. You are aboard the Portuguese fishing vessel Catalina. Can you tell me where your ship sank? Perhaps there are still survivors.

Kayla affirmed that there were definitely no survivors left besides her.

The man scratched his beard and said in a slightly embarrassed tone:

— I have to apologize to you on behalf of my comrades, but we were forced to undress you. We couldn’t leave cold, wet clothes on your body.

— No, no — Kayla cut in. — I’m eternally indebted to you. I should be thanking you.

Breathing a sigh of relief, the man said:

— It must be said, you’re a resilient one. Our doctor said that a little more time and it would have been too late. He gave you an injection, and in less than half an hour your arms and legs were warm. — After a short pause, the man asked: — So, you’re British then?

— Yes. Why did you think I was French or Italian?

— You look very much like an Italian. Your hair color and facial features.

Another person entered the room. This one had less thick stubble and was much younger, looking no more than thirty. He carried a tray, from which an appetizing smell emanated. Kayla felt an animal hunger awaken in her, having gone without food for more than a day and a half.

— By the way, — the man on the stool suddenly said, placing his palm on his chest, — let us introduce ourselves. My name is Paulo. Behind me is Raul — our sailor and part-time doctor. He treated you. And this — the Captain continued, pointing to the guy with the tray — is Jose. He was the one who pulled you out of the water.

Kayla looked at Paulo and asked with a thoughtful expression:

— How do you say in Portuguese…

— He will understand — the ship’s Captain interrupted.

She looked at Jose with a grateful gaze and said:

— Thank you. Thank you so much. I won’t forget this.

Jose replied with something.

— What is he saying?

Paulo translated into English:

— He preemptively apologizes for his culinary skills. He asks that you try it and tell him how it tastes.

Kayla tucked the blanket under her armpits, covering her torso, then took the plate, put a piece in her mouth, savored it, and asked in delight:

— What is this?

— Stewed squid.

A satisfied smile appeared on Kayla’s face, bordering on a state of mild ecstasy. It was something spectacular after almost a month of eating preserved foods. Noticing such a reaction to his dish, Jose tried to hide his smile. Like some boy, he flicked his eyes between the floor and the sides, embarrassed to look at the undressed girl, especially after having had to hastily undress her during the rescue and witness her full nakedness. And to distract her satisfied gaze from himself, Jose hurried to the drawers where the clothes lay. He brought a T-shirt that likely belonged to him and overalls like those worn by all the sailors on the fishing vessel. Jose carefully placed the clothes next to the lamp and said something.

While Kayla greedily devoured the stewed squid, Paulo translated his sailor’s latest phrase:

— Jose says this is his favorite T-shirt. He’s giving it to you.

Wiping her soy sauce-covered lips with the back of her hand, Kayla expressed her gratitude once again.

— Please forgive us, but there are no other clothes here. But soon you’ll be able to put on your own things. They should be dry any minute now.

— And please excuse me too — Kayla mumbled with her mouth full. — I just forgot my manners because of the hunger. My name is Kayla.

The Captain emphasized her name in Portuguese for his subordinates, who immediately repeated it quietly.

— Well, for now we will leave. We won’t bother you. Get some rest.

The prolonged absence of visual contact with sunlight made it overwhelmingly bright to her eyes. No sooner had Kayla stepped onto the deck than she immediately shielded her eyes with her palm, squinting against the blinding glare. Noticing the girl emerge, Raúl quickly ran up to her. The smell of fish emanated from his clothes, as it did from the entire deck. At that moment, Kayla liked the smell. Raúl said something in his native tongue, then placed his sunglasses on Kayla.

— Yes, that’s much better. Raul, right? Thank you, Raul.

Now Kayla could look around. For a fishing ship, the vessel looked quite large. A crowd of sailors were busy with a net full of fish near the stern. José was among them. The sky was clear. There was absolute calm, creating an ideal setting for fishing.

Raul led Kayla to the bridge.

— How are you? Do you feel better? — Paulo asked as soon as he saw Kayla.

— You know, it feels as if nothing happened. No fatigue, no migraine, no fever.

— In that case, you have at least the essential ingredient for complete happiness — Paulo said. — When you have health, everything else immediately loses its value. But, unfortunately, only those who have experienced terrible physical torment can understand this truth.

Kayla was lost in deep thought over the Captain’s words.

— Today the weather is spoiling us — Paulo continued. — It’s quite a contrast from the last week.

— Where are we now? — Kayla asked, walking around the bridge and looking at the dashboard, which seemed positively ancient to her after what she had seen on the deep-sea submarine «Amphibia XXI.»

— We are almost midway between the Azores and Lisbon. We’ve nearly filled the freezer. So we decided to sail back to the continent, filling the last few empty spaces along the way. Just be patient a little longer. As soon as we get ashore, I will take you to my friend. He owns his own…

The radio rang. Paulo went to the radio unit and picked up the receiver.

— Captain of the vessel Catalina, Paulo Almeida, speaking.

Paulo listened intently to the voice on the line, and after a while, his shocked gaze slowly turned in Kayla’s direction. A few seconds later, he said in a wary voice, as if he himself didn’t understand what he was saying:

— It’s for you.

The Captain held out the receiver. Kayla remembered the beacon in her tooth, involuntarily placing her palm on her cheek. She tremulously accepted the receiver from the Captain’s hand and brought it to her right ear.

— Hello?

A painfully familiar male voice was heard at the other end of the line:

— Doctor Fox?

— Yes. That’s me.

— Stay on this vessel. Do not leave it. We have already sent rescuers for you.

Rescuers — Kayla thought. In a different context, that would have sounded like genuine concern, as if someone worried about her health and life. But at this moment, the word «rescuer» meant something completely different from its conventional usage.

— Did you understand everything?

— Yes. Of course — Kayla replied with restraint.

The male voice on the other end of the line added:

— Now hand the receiver back to the Captain.

Just forty-two minutes later, a seaplane landed on the water near the fishing vessel Catalina.

EPILOGUE

05:38 AM.

Staging Base.

Lizard Point.

Less than fourteen hours had passed since Kayla left the fishing vessel Catalina, and now she found herself back where it all began. The dimly lit room, hidden twenty-five meters underground. The somber tones of the walls. Tables and chairs were made of chromed metal. But something had changed. This time there was only one table and two chairs in the room. The whole setting was somewhat reminiscent of an interrogation room at a police station. The only things missing were the mountings for handcuffs, and the handcuffs themselves.

Kayla was sitting in one of the two chairs with her back to the door. For clothing, she was provided with a dark gray dress made of pure cotton. Although the dress was her size, it did not reach her knees, and as soon as Kayla sat down on the chair, the dress rode up, exposing most of her thighs. Kayla thought that the owner of such a wardrobe was either a nymphomaniac or had obvious relationship problems with men and was trying in every possible way to attract their attention.

As soon as the seaplane moored to the fishing vessel, she was abruptly ordered to board. Kayla wasn’t even allowed to retrieve her clothes. So now she was wearing nothing but the dress, which had to be adjusted almost every minute.

Her eyes, without moving, drilled into the tabletop. If the table hadn’t been there, her gaze would have been fixed on the floor. She fleetingly remembered Captain De Bont, Henry, Tucker, Kate, Hector, and Morgan; how just recently they had sat here in the same room, listening to the categorical instructions of the man who spoke on behalf of the employer. But among her memories, she dwelt particularly on Tucker. Or rather, on what he had become. She recalled the symptoms that had afflicted him the very next day. Running those events through her head for the hundredth time, Kayla pondered just how potent these microorganisms turned out to be. The incubation period was less than a day. Furthermore, how cunningly the parasitization process was orchestrated. The symptoms disappeared as quickly as they arose, only to reappear later when Tucker’s body was completely under the control of the foreign organisms. Kayla recalled the next stage, how quickly the process of transformation — from human into an unknown entity, a hybrid of human and something else — had progressed.

Kayla’s thoughts were interrupted by a sound from behind her. The door opened. The man in a gray suit, named Smith, entered the room. He walked around the table and, pulling out the chair opposite Kayla, spoke in the same low, imposing voice:

— Hello, Doctor Fox. Do you remember me?

Kayla continued to fiddle with the hem of her dress, like a frightened little girl. She swallowed a lump in her throat and replied, trying to hide her gaze from Smith’s face:

— A person is only capable of remembering what is familiar. I didn’t recognize you before arriving at the base, nor do I now.

Smith didn’t answer. Sitting down in the chair, he placed a small stack of papers on the chromed tabletop. Next, he took a pen from the side pocket of his jacket and began leafing through the papers. Kayla looked up from the table and watched Smith as he addressed her again, but in a slightly different tone, maintaining an impassive expression:

— So. Let’s discuss everything in order…

The activated dictaphone recorded all the information from Kayla’s lips. While she recounted the events that transpired aboard «Amphibia XXI,» Smith simultaneously made notes on his papers. No matter what Kayla mentioned — a crew member turned into a monster, a humanoid skeleton, a flying saucer and the signal emanating from it, a Nazi submarine on the ocean floor, or a live dinosaur — nothing changed in Smith’s expression. He sat calmly taking notes, as if listening to a story about mundane work routines.

— Alright — said Smith. — Who among the crew made the decision to prematurely terminate the expedition?

Without thinking long, Kayla answered:

— It was a collective decision. The situation was an emergency, and we were forced to interrupt our work.

— And you say you didn’t manage to take any materials with you? — Smith asked, waving his pen in the air.

— I told you that your people who came to pick me up asked if I had anything to take with me. As soon as I said I needed to retrieve some clothes, they forbade me to return to the hold.

The company was not interested in Kayla’s clothes. They required information about the research.

Smith scratched his eyebrow and left the room. He returned about ten minutes later, carrying a wide sheet of paper. It depicted a map of the Earth showing coordinate lines. Several markers of different colors and a piece of string also appeared on the table.

Smith unrolled the map and continued, now standing and leaning on the edge of the table with both hands:

— Let’s talk about the last discovery you stumbled upon. Let’s go back to that trench where, as you say, the giant animal emerged. How much time passed from the moment the submarine began to move away from that spot until the moment of evacuation?

Kayla gave approximate figures.

— In what direction was the submarine moving?

— I remember that we didn’t have much time to deviate from the route.

— Good. How fast was the submarine moving? — Smith continued to inquire.

— Twenty-two knots, it seems.

— Angle of ascent? Do you recall?

— Yes. Twenty-five degrees trim.

For the first time, some emotion showed on Smith’s face. But it was too fleeting to determine what kind of emotion it was.

Smith made rough calculations and marked the point on the map where the beacon implanted in her tooth was activated. Smith indicated the second point based on calculations of the Amphibia’s depth, speed, and angle of movement, plus the route trajectory. He then took a piece of string, wrapping one end around a black marker. The marker was placed at the approximate location of the trench. Smith pulled the string to the second point and, like a compass, used the marker to scribe an arc of fifteen to twenty centimeters. After that, he picked up a green marker and drew a line on both sides parallel to the arc, marking an error margin of several tens of nautical miles.

Smith straightened his posture and assessed the drawing, after which he sat down on the chair and addressed Kayla, clasping his fingers together:

— Doctor Fox. The company does not renounce its obligations under the contract. Your services will be paid in full.

— But I didn’t work the required time.

— That fact does not negate the company’s obligation to pay the amount due to you. The contract contains a clause stating that, in the event of unforeseen situations arising due to reasons beyond the employee’s control, the employer is obliged to pay the entire amount, regardless of the duration and results of the expedition.

Kayla asked the question that had been brewing in her mind since she was aboard the Catalina:

— What about those who didn’t return?

Smith stood up from his chair and, carefully collecting the map, replied with the same imperturbable expression:

— Try not to think about it.

Unnoticed by Smith, Kayla hurried to adjust her dress, which was creeping higher and higher, when suddenly she sharply clamped her thighs together. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to concentrate on one single spot in her body.

Another second and Kayla might not have made it in time. She felt a plastic packet begin to slide out of her crotch, containing a sealed vial with the Alpha-1 samples.