Bloodthirst (9 page)

He was still looking in her direction, though she knew the light blinded him so that she was invisible. He seemed to be thinking hard about something; and then, his face relaxed.

“All right. I'll try to eat a little.”

“Good.” Christine smiled, wishing he could see it.

Adams picked up the spoon and leaned over the bowl. As the steam rose into his face, he looked so nauseated she half expected him to gag. But he dipped his spoon into the broth and took a tiny sip. “You still there?”

“I'm still here.”

Adams took another spoonful of broth, then another. Then a spoonful of vegetables and meat. Christine felt pleased.

And then he stopped in mid-chew. His expression became very odd. The muscles in his neck pulsed once, twice, beneath the gold chain.

She leaned forward, putting a hand on the crystal. “Are you all right?”

Adams' eyes grew very wide. He put a hand to his throat.

“My God, you're choking!” Christine grabbed a field-suit unit from a nearby cabinet, strapped it to her waist, and fumbled for the control. Her hands were shaking.
Too long, it's taking too long.
At last she pressed the right control, and flinched as her ears popped painfully, the way they always did when the field first enveloped her. She ran to the entrance of the isolation chamber and pressed in the code that told the system to open the door.

It opened almost immediately. Chapel stepped into the airlock without a second's hesitation.

How could she have been so stupid, giving him solid food when he was so weak? She should have just given him the broth.… The door to sickbay shut behind her, and she punched the next code into the panel facing her. The panel rose slowly upward.

“Hurry, dammit!” She pounded it with her fists, realizing that her gesture was a wasted one. “Hurry!” How many seconds had it taken her to get this far? She had to get to him, soon. The panel was a third of the way up when she stooped down and crawled beneath it to get to the next stage.

A scan passed over her, and once it sensed that she was safely suited up, the door to the chamber rose automatically.
For God's sake, hurry!

She stepped into infrared darkness.
Dear God, don't let him be dead. Don't let me have killed him.…

The bed was empty.

“Adams?”

There was a noise behind her. She turned to look around, and for one brief second before she lost consciousness, she was surprised by the strength of the blow he delivered to her head.

ADAMS' BREATH WAS coming fast as he bent over the blond woman. Sometimes the euphoria came over him powerfully, stealing air from his lungs and making his heart hammer against his chest, but it also made him strong. Still, as he studied her limp form, he was glad she seemed to be unconscious—she looked too capable of putting up a fight. He preferred to be sure, however; he searched for the control on her belt unit. The field tingled uncomfortably against his fingers, rather like a mild electric shock, but he forced himself to push hard against it and switched off the control.

No matter that it would cause her to be exposed to the microbe. There were far more important concerns on Adams' mind now. Like not wanting to die. And if he let them take him to a star base, death would come sooner than even he had anticipated. No, he wouldn't let them take him there. He was better off fighting the microbe.

It occurred to him, then, that he was not exactly sure how to know someone was unconscious without using a tricorder. On instinct, he lifted the woman's head in one hand and peeled back an eyelid with the other. The eye was rolled back, so that all he could see was the white and the merest edge of a blue iris.
Of course she's unconscious
, a tiny remnant of rational mind told him.
If it were a trick, she would have attacked you already
. And his new mind answered shrilly:
I have to know, I have to know
… .

His fingers touched something warm and sticky. He pulled them away, startled, letting the woman's head drop back, and lifted his hand to his face.

Blood. The scent of it was heady, metallic, sensual. He touched a finger to his tongue and closed his eyes in ecstasy at the taste of iron, recalling with an odd nostalgia how it had been with Lara, and Yoshi.… For a moment, his head swam so he thought he might faint. And then he managed to collect himself. It was tempting, too tempting, to drop to his knees and lap up every drop that oozed from the small nick on the back of her head. Her head must have struck the table with such force that the field suit was an inadequate cushion.

Reluctantly, he stood up, leaving the woman on the floor. As painful as it was to pull himself away, he had to move fast. The lights outside the chamber in sickbay dazzled him, so that he could not see anything beyond the barrier. For all he knew, someone could be watching him right now, and he had no way of knowing. No, he had to leave her, and quickly, but he comforted himself with the thought that there would be others. After all, a ship the size of the
Enterprise
carried four hundred crewpersons. Adams smiled to himself. Yes, there would definitely be others.

He went over to the exit. When the doctor was leaving the chamber after preparing his patient for the computer verification test, Adams had been careful to memorize the code the doctor had punched into the panel to open the door. Apparently it hadn't occurred to the doctor that his patient's eyes had adjusted well enough to the darkness to make out the numbers.

Now Adams entered the code with trembling fingers and was rewarded when the door began to slowly rise.

The euphoria flooded him anew. He would make it. He wouldn't die. Mendez wouldn't have the pleasure of killing him. No, Adams would find a way to survive on the
Enterprise
until he could escape.… Suddenly, he felt better, stronger. Incredibly strong.

Yet as the door rose higher, he cried out at the pain. The passageway was filled with intense ultraviolet light that cut through him like a thousand sharp knives. He raised his arms, shielding his eyes as best he could, but the agony engulfed his entire body. It was like being stabbed and burned at the same time.

Tears streamed down his cheeks, soaked the sleeves of his shirt; still, Adams managed to stumble forward blindly. He staggered on, unseeing, until he bumped into another door. He squeezed his eyes shut, gasping, and groped for the code panel. It took him several seconds to enter what he prayed was the correct code.

“Invalid entry,” the computer said in a polite but unsympathetic tone. “Please reenter.”

Adams made small, desperate noises in the back of his throat. He put his face right next to the panel and forced one eye open, gritting his teeth. Carefully, as slowly as he could bear, he punched in the same three digits as before, the ones that had opened the first panel.

At first, nothing happened. Adams fell shrieking and clawing against the panel. “Open, damn you!
Open!
I don't want to die”

And then he could hear a muffled buzz outside, in sickbay, and the voice of the computer saying, in perfectly simulated alarm, “Unauthorized exit from isolation! Unauthorized exit!”

There was a
whoosh
as the panel behind him descended, cutting him off from the safety and darkness of the isolation chamber. He was trapped.

Adams sank to the floor, buried his head in his knees, and sobbed.

“Will she be all right?” Kirk asked gently. There were a hundred other questions he wanted answered as well, but now was not the time. He waited patiently as McCoy paced in front of the isolation unit across from Adams. This one was lit, and Christine Chapel lay unconscious inside.

The doctor's arms were folded tightly to his chest, and his blue eyes were shooting sparks. He was pacing back and forth so fast in front of the captain that Kirk was beginning to get dizzy from watching him.

“What, you mean the head wound?” McCoy responded irritably. “She'll be fine. A very mild concussion, a tiny laceration of the scalp. She ought to come to in a minute.”

Kirk nodded silently. No point in pushing the doctor when he got like this.

“So don't you want to know what happened?” McCoy stopped pacing abruptly and glared at him. “Aren't you even going to ask?”

Kirk raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. “I was waiting for you to wind down a little.”

“Wind down?”

“You seemed a little upset.”

“Upset?” McCoy snarled.
"Upset?
You're damn right I'm upset! When they string Adams up, I'll volunteer to supply the rope. He didn't have to expose her. He could have restrained her without turning off the suit, the son of a bitch.” He kicked the computer console for emphasis.

“Any chance she won't come down with it?”

“Sure.” McCoy forced himself to calm down a little. “There's always a chance. We ought to know something soon.” He slumped into a chair next to the captain. “Sorry, Jim.”

“It's okay. I might even help with that rope myself.”

McCoy gave an unconvincing imitation of a smile that faded quickly.

“Now suppose you tell me what happened, Doctor.”

McCoy sighed deeply. “I'll try to make a long story short. The alarm sounded in my quarters and Security. By the time I got here, Esswein had already turned off the alarm. The computer indicated that Adams was trapped in the exit.” He ran a hand over his face. “How he could have gotten hold of the exit code is beyond me”

“I thought you were going to make this short,” Kirk said.

“Sorry. We suited up, Esswein took care of Adams, I took care of Chris. I reprogrammed the matrix to seal up the nick in her suit and got her to this other chamber. That's it. Adams was no trouble—the light had him in too much pain for him to put up a fight. Chris was out, so I couldn't ask her what happened, but it's pretty obvious. Adams tricked her inside somehow, then struck her so she hit her head.”

“Did Adams have anything to say for himself?”

McCoy shrugged. “Not much that made sense. He was incoherent—and not just from the pain. The disease has affected his mind. He was manic, raving. I gave him a mild sedative.”

“Is he still awake?”

“Yeah, if you want to question him. He's calmer now, but he still might be a little shaken up. Question at your own risk.”

McCoy led him over to Adams' chamber and handed Kirk an infrared visor from the nearby console. “Here, take this. I'm gonna keep an eye on Chris, if you don't mind. I'd like to be there when she wakes up.” The doctor went back to the other side of the room.

Kirk put on the visor and snapped on the intercom. Behind the barrier, Adams sat on the bed, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking himself gently. The pendant around his neck swung slowly back and forth. He was quite oblivious to the tubing attached to his arm.

“If you're an innocent man, Dr. Adams,” the captain asked quietly, “then why were you running away?”

Startled, Adams stopped rocking and squinted toward Kirk. Something about his gaunt, shadowed face gave the impression he had been weeping and for a moment, Kirk half expected him to burst into tears.

But Adams controlled himself. “You must believe what I tell you,” he said with dignity. “Because if you don't help me, I'll die.”

“The lab is working round the clock on a cure, Dr. Adams” Kirk began.

“I didn't mean the disease.” Adams hugged himself tighter and shuddered.

“What
did
you mean? I have no patience anymore”

“Mendez,” Adams answered abruptly.

“Mendez? Admiral Mendez? You know him?”

Adams nodded and looked away. “How soon will we reach the star base?”

“About ten hours. But what did you mean about Mendez?”

For a moment, Adams was silent.

“I can leave,” Kirk said shortly. “You're the one who needs help.” He took a few purposely loud steps away from the barrier.

“Wait!” Adams sat forward on the edge of the bed. “I need your protection.”

“Protection? From what—or whom?”

“Mendez,” Adams said.

“Why?”

“I work for him.”

“You were working for Starfleet?” Kirk felt his body tense. He couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it, even if the computer and McCoy both verified it.

“I didn't say that. I said I worked for Mendez. And others.”

“What others?”

“Even I don't know. I'm just paid to do my job. Mendez is my only contact. He's trying to set me up, don't you understand? Now that something has gone wrong with the project, he wants me out of the way so that there's no chance of my talking. If I'm turned over to Starfleet, I'll be killed before there's ever any trial.”

“Biowarfare is illegal,” Kirk said. “Why would a Starfleet admiral risk court-martial and criminal prosecution”

“Ask
him
. I don't know.” Adams drew his knees back up to his chest and huddled miserably on the bed. “If you turn me in, I'm a dead man. It's the same as killing me outright.” His wild, pleading eyes looked out blindly at the brightness. “You could tell them I died. That's it; tell them I died, and I didn't talk”

“I can't tell them that. Even if I wanted to—which I don't—they'd never believe it.”

“You've got to”

“Why not get to the bottom of this?” Kirk asked. “Why not find out who else is involved? Testify against Mendez. Starfleet will see that you're protected. I can verify your accusation.”

“No,” Adams almost sobbed. “Starfleet will see to it that I'm killed. Just say I died. Don't you understand? There's too many of them—and if you try to start an investigation, they'll kill you, too.”

Too many? In Starfleet? “I don't believe you.” Kirk turned away angrily.

It was not quite the truth. The truth was that he didn't want to believe.