new information. She had certainly not seen Paul being injured, and she knew she had not actually been bitten by the malignant things. She forced her mind to quiet as she took stock of her own body.
She shook her head resolutely, “I’m not sick, Captain. I don’t know what to think. In some cases, an airborne variation might not be as virulent as a contact infection. Maybe the weakened form of the virus gives our bodies time to adopt so we don’t become symptomatic. That is, if it is a virus as Dr. Klein supposed.” Pam shrugged. “She developed it so I guess she would know if anybody would.”
Then she paused and tried to examine the new information from a different angle. She felt frazzled and found it hard to concentrate. We don’t have enough information.
“Look,” she said finally, “here again is what I think. Dr. Klein kept copious notes about her research. What we need to do is get back to Future Faith and find out what she did. She told me that she ran dozens of animal tests. It is likely that we would uncover some clues back there. I could help with that because I worked there. I’m not a doctor, but as I’ve told you before several times, I’m a pathology student working on my doctorate. Dr. Klein selected me for an internship because of my specialty.” She glanced at Paul and added, “He could probably help too. He’s a medical student, and there had to be some reason Dr. Klein hired him. One thing you can say about her is she was pretty selective.”
“Why’s he asleep?” Captain Crawford said. “I’ve known some cool characters in my time with the military, but I’ve never seen any of them sleep through a gunshot ringing a few feet from their heads.”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” Pam admitted. “I don’t know what his schedule was like before the incident. He could have been up for hours before this thing started, and then had to fight his own way out. Maybe it was the Taser shot. There could be a reasonable explanation for it.”
“He slept through a gunshot,” Captain Crawford repeated. “That seems peculiar.”
Pam wanted to protect Paul, but she had no real reason to argue with the officer. She glanced at Paul again, relieved to see his chest rise and fall in a regular rhythm. He appeared to be simply napping. She took a deep breath, stepped towards the young man, and put a hand on his forehead. He did not feel feverish. George had definitely appeared feverish before he succumbed. As she touched him and softly called out to him, his eyes opened and he looked bewildered. Then he glanced around, saw Pamela standing above him, and frowned. “I had some kind of nightmare.”
“You may have woken up into a worse one,” Pamela said, sparing nothing with her words or expression. She nodded towards Captain Crawford. “He says we’re all infected. We just don’t have symptoms. The virus must be airborne.”
“Did you get scratched or bitten by the things?” Paul asked, slowly rising into a sitting position. His fair hair was tousled, and Pam thought he looked boyish and uncertain.
“No, I’m sure of it,” Pam said decisively. “But Enrico was spitting some goo out of his mouth. I didn’t feel like I was sprayed by it, but I can’t be sure. I don’t know if the stuff is absorbed by the skin, or if it is airborne. Anyway, our blood tests were positive, but we’re not symptomatic.”
“You mean that we’re not lurching around trying to eat people?” Paul asked.
Just then the infirmary door opened again. Three soldiers ushered in a small group of people. Pamela quickly counted off three men and two women. One of the men wore a state trooper’s uniform, and he had heavy bandages wrapped tightly under a tattered sleeve. One woman’s hand was entirely engulfed in some sort of surgical wrapping. The other three just seemed to sport an assortment of cuts and bruises, some covered by small bandages. They all looked tired and bewildered.
“Sir,” the lead soldier said to Captain Crawford. He saluted. The officer nodded back.
“These people all turned themselves in at hospitals, and we ushered them here as ordered,” the soldier said. Another soldier directed them each to take a cot. As they entered, Dr. Lincoln seemed to rouse himself on his own cot, but he only gently pulled at the cuff, and then quieted again. The infected creature, still