Kieran himself, cast as the wild-eyed persona of Keziah Turle, was speaking from another window. “It is as the testaments of old describe: The Plague of Akhnaton has come upon ye! `And their skins became as the diseased flesh that clothes the undead; their eyes became as limpid, yellow swamps. . . .’ You who would not heed the warnings passed down through the ages must now bear the price. . . .” It was the message he had sent earlier to Gilder personally, and which to his admitted surprise had evidently gotten through. Gilder, appearing alongside Thornton Velte in the two remaining windows, was replaying the message for Velte’s and Banks’s benefit.
“How do you know that anyone of old ever said it?” Velte challenged. “Turle could be making it up. I’ve got people checking for some other references. They haven’t come up with anything.”
“He does seem to be a man of obscure and specialized knowledge,” Gilder commented.
“Too much of a coincidence,” Banks mumbled. “Didn’t you say you got this before any symptoms developed here?”
“How could he have known about it, Thornton?” Gilder asked Velte.
Velte’s mouth twisted while he searched for an explanation. “Wasn’t he in the vehicle there?” he said finally. “He could have spread something around. Who let him in? What kind of security are we operating down there?”
“Boy, if he only knew how close he is,” Kieran murmured to the others with him, enjoying the show.
“Is Gilder going to buy it?” Harry asked.
“Someone like him doesn’t bend so soon,” Juanita said.
“He looks like he’s taking it more seriously than Velte, though,” Walter put in.
“Right now, he doesn’t want to get involved,” Hamil told them. “He’s too preoccupied with his daughter’s wedding.”
On the screen, Gilder seemed to accept that this was not going to lead anywhere immediately. He glanced around moodily, as if searching for a different tack. “What’s this about trouble among the military force down there?” he asked.
“Major Cobert says they’re on edge over the interference problems we’ve been having, and the fluorescent effects down in the workings,” Banks replied. “Also, the gas emanations. Somehow they’ve gotten it into their heads that we’re all in a tizzy about it.”
“Hm. So where are we?” Gilder asked.
“Clarence agrees that the fluorescence is surprising—but it would hardly be the first time that a theory needed updating. Tran admits he’s mystified by the emanations. They shouldn’t be there.”
“Can’t somebody go up there and look?” Velte asked irascibly.
Banks raised a discolored face appealingly toward the camera. “It isn’t something that’s exactly top of our list right now, Thornton,” he said, admonishing his immediate chief rather than the boss directly.
Gilder shuffled uncomfortably. “Well, I’m too wrapped up in other business right now. We’ve got those squatters out of the way, at least, so that’s something. Thornton, can you take charge of this and get to the bottom of what’s going on down there? Fly a doctor in from Lowell. It’s probably just some kind of bug that’s gone around. I’ve always said these small-scale systems are closed petri dishes. This idea about that Turle zealot bringing something in strikes me as too farfetched. From what I’ve heard, he doesn’t have the coordination to get a hat on his head. Talk to Cobert too, and tell him that if he can’t maintain discipline in his unit we’ll have it replaced.”
“Leave it to me, Hamilton,” Velte replied.
* * *
An ambulance bearing medical specialists arrived from Lowell less than an hour later. On seeing the condition of the Mule’s occupants, Farquist, the doctor in charge, confessed himself baffled. He’d never seen nor heard the likes of this before; neither did the literature contain a description of anything resembling it. Preliminary scans and biological tests using the equipment aboard the ambulance yielded nonsense results. After consulting remotely with various specialists and getting nowhere, Farquist told Banks that he proposed calling out a larger transporter to take all of the Mule’s occupants back to Lowell and have them placed under observation there. By this time, Banks and the others were feeling too miserable to care. Then Major Cobert reported from the Venning carrier that he and his men weren’t feeling or looking too spiffy either.