The two Trelawneys held a brief, whispered conversation in the living
room. Dowland, across the room from them, and under cover of two guns
now, couldn't catch much of it. Jill was in one of the radiation suits
he'd brought in from the storeroom. Miguel was dead. He had still
been unconscious when she woke up, and had stopped breathing minutes
afterwards. Medic had done what it could; in this case it simply hadn't
been enough. Jill, however, had found another use for it. Dowland
thought the possibility mightn't have occurred to anyone else in
similar circumstances; but he still should have thought of it when he
left the house. As she began to struggle up from sleep, she remembered
what Dowland had told her about medic, and somehow she had managed to
inject a full ampule of it into her arm. It had brought her completely
awake within minutes.
The murmured talk ended. The girl looked rather white and frightened
now. Paul Trelawney's face was expressionless as he came over to
Dowland. Jill shoved the gun she had put on Dowland into her belt,
picked up Paul's hunting rifle, held it in her hands, and stood waiting.
"Here's the procedure, Dowland," Trelawney said. "Jill will go over to
the lab with us, but stay outside on guard. She'll watch...."
"Did you tell her," Dowland interrupted, "to keep an eye out for
something that stands twice as high as this house?"
Trelawney looked at him a moment. "So you ran into it," he said. "I
was wondering. It's very curious that ... well, one thing at a time. I
cautioned her about it, as it happens. Now come over to the table."
Dowland remained standing beside the table, while across from him
Trelawney rapidly sketched out two diagrams on a piece of paper. The
IPA gun lay on the table near Trelawney's right hand. There might have
been an outside chance of reaching it if one could have discounted
Jill's watchfulness. Which, Dowland decided, one couldn't. And he'd
seen her reload the rifle she was holding. He stayed where he was.
Trelawney shoved the paper across to him.
"Both diagrams represent our machine," he said, "and they should give
you a general idea of what you'll see. This wheel here is at the far
side of the console when we come in the door. The wheel is the flow
regulator--the thing you have to keep in mind. There are scale markings
on it. The major markings have the numbers one to five. Yesterday
morning the regulator was set at five--full flow. Spin the wheel back
to one, and the Ym-400 that's been producing the flow goes inert. Is
that clear?"
Dowland nodded. "Clear enough."
"After that," Trelawney remarked, "we may be able to take things a
little easier."
"What's the quantity you're using in there?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account