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“What’s wrong?” Tse asked.
Heng continued to study the finger. “Sublieutenant Junjie may have contaminated himself. Through an open wound. But it makes no sense. Others have handled the bodies without getting sick.”
Before arriving here, Heng had watched the video of recovery of the sub’s jettisoned pod. When the men’s corpses had been removed, the rescuers had not even been wearing gloves. Still, the disease had not spread among them.
Afterward, Heng had performed a battery of tests on lab mice, exposing them to blood, saliva, and tissues from both Wong and the dead men. None of the animals had become ill. This stubborn lack of transmission made it harder to determine the cause of this affliction.
So why is Junjie sick now?
He pictured the horror in the other room. Had the bodies become contagious once the process had advanced enough to cause the neurological malformation? Had Junjie come in contact with a splattering of cerebrospinal fluid, allowing something pathogenic to enter his body?
Xue pushed past his father. Focused on the medical mystery, Henghad failed to note that Xue had crossed the lab and returned. He now carried a fire axe in hand.
“Hold his arm to the tabletop,” Xue ordered.
Heng understood and gripped the sublieutenant’s wrist tighter.
“No, no, no...” Junjie moaned.
“Better to lose your finger than...” Heng nodded to the next room. “The contaminated digit must be removed.”
The sublieutenant’s eyes got huge. He stopped struggling and allowed Heng to pin his hand to a nearby workbench. Junjie turned his face away.
“Keep your fingers splayed wide,” Heng warned.
Xue came up on the other side and raised the axe. “Fetch Nurse Lam,” he ordered Min. “Prep a tourniquet.”
Min fled to the lab’s airlock.
Xue lifted his axe higher, took a deep breath, then brought it down hard. The edge cleaved through bone and skin—and took off not just the finger, but the entire hand.
Junjie screamed at the pain, at the mutilation.
Heng clenched the man’s forearm, trying to cut off blood flow. He looked over at Xue for an explanation.
The man lowered his axe and threw Heng’s words back at him. “Better to lose ahandthan...” He tilted his head toward the med ward.
Heng felt sick, but he knew the man was right.
Xue looked down at the severed hand. “And even this amputation may have been too cautious.”
4:04P.M.
Captain Tse Daiyu paced the length of the conference room table, trying to dispel her irritation and frustration. She took some measure of satisfaction from the dismay on Heng’s face as Xue shared the information that Aigua had already gone over with her, a tale of a malfunctioning lunar lander, of exotic particles in moon rocks, of chunks of an ancient planetoid that threatened the world, and the real reason theChangzheng 24had been lost.
Xue went into far more technical details, but it failed to hold Daiyu’s attention. She eyed Major Choi’s father. He stood out in the hall, talking animatedly on the phone. Something was amiss. She enjoyed his consternation, finding the man too full of himself, too proud of a son he had coddled into his current rank. She had no doubt that the conversation he was having pertained to this matter.
Her eyes narrowed.
If something is wrong, can I turn it to my advantage?
They had already left Sublieutenant Junjie down in the lab’s med ward. He would be closely monitored for any further sign of contamination. Even his hand rested in a saline bath for further study.
But none of it interested her any longer.
Greater matters were afoot in the world at large, along with a chance for incredible glory.
She remembered Aigua’s claim.
