“They would have saved everybody a lot of trouble if they had.” Smith resumed his crawl to the rear of the bay. He had never considered himself a claustrophobe, but the bomb bay was getting to him, and badly. The cold metal walls kept folding around him, and it seemed increasingly difficult to breathe. He was getting a headache as well, the beating of his heart pounding at his temples. He had to force himself to focus on the job, checking the casing, inch by deliberate inch, for cracks or other damage and for spore leakage.

He made the last yard to the rear of the bay, twisting onto his back to check the rear of the reservoir and the dispenser manifolds. The fogging of his faceplate was getting worse, and the flashlight seemed to be dimming. His head suddenly seemed to be exploding, and he gulped for air, cursing weakly. This was no good! He had to get out of here!

“Jon, what’s wrong?” Valentina was back on the circuit.

“Nothing. I’m fine. It’s just…tight in here. The containment vessel is intact. I’m starting back.”

He tried to roll over and turn in the confined space. He couldn’t seem to make it around. He kept hanging up on things that hadn’t been there before, and his suppressed panic flared. He lost his grip on the flashlight and swore again as it rolled out of reach.

“Jon, are you all right?” Valentina’s words were sharp this time, demanding.

“Yes, damn it!” He gave up on the flashlight and tried to drag himself toward the dim patch of outside illumination at the far end of the bay. Cold sweat burned in his eyes, and his arms felt as if they were encased in solidifying concrete. His breath hissing through clenched teeth, he commanded his body to move. Only his body refused to obey.

And then it reached him through his muddled mind. He wasn’t all right. He was dead.

“Get away from the plane!” he shouted weakly, his lungs suddenly on fire.

“Jon, what is it? What’s happening?”

“The plane’s hot! I’ve been contaminated! There’s something else in here! It’s not anthrax! Abort the mission! Get away from here!”

“Jon, hold on! We’re suiting up. We’re coming for you!”

“No! The suits are no good! It penetrates! The antibiotics aren’t stopping it, either!”

“Jon, we can’t just leave you!” Beyond Val’s frantic words he could hear Smyslov’s demanding questions.

“Forget it!” He had to force each word with its own racking breath. “I’ve had it! I’m already dying! Don’t come in after me! That’s an order!”

It had been bound to happen sooner or later. He’d dodged the biological bullet with Hades, with Cassandra, and with Lazarus. He had to take the fall sooner or later. That bit of his disintegrating consciousness that was still the researcher, the scientist, pushed its way forward. There was a last service he could render to those who would follow him into this black pit to learn and fight this thing.

“Val, listen…listen! It’s respiratory. It hits through the respiratory system. My lungs and bronchial tubes are burning…No congestion or fluid buildup…no pulmonary paralysis…but I can’t get oxygen…accelerated pulse…vision graying out…strength…losing…Get away…That’s…order.”

There was nothing left to breathe and speak with. They were calling to him over the radio, something about the MOPP suit. He couldn’t hear over the staggering hammer of his heartbeat in his ears. Was this how it had been for Sophia at the end, drowning in her own blood? No. At least Sophia hadn’t been so alone. He made a final effort to drag himself toward the light, just so he wouldn’t die in this hideous place. Then the light was gone, and the dark took him fully.

An eternity passed, or maybe only a second.

Smith became aware of fragments…Movement…Touch…Voices…Pressure on his chest…Lips, soft, warm, living, pressed against his, with urgency but without passion.

Sensation returned within himself. The lift of his chest; air, cold, pure, pouring into his lungs like water from an iced pitcher. Life stirred with its bite, radiating outward. He could breathe. He could breathe! He lay there in the suddenly pleasant cool darkness, almost orgasmically relishing each inhalation.

A small ungloved hand brushed back his hair, and those lips pressed against his again. Gently this time, pleasantly lingering.

“I think respiration has been fully restored, Professor,” an amused, accented voice commented.

“Just making sure,” a second lighter voice replied.

Smith realized that his head was pillowed on a rolled sleeping bag. Opening his eyes, he found Valentina Metrace kneeling beside him, her parka hood thrown back and ice crystals glittering like stars in her black hair. She smiled down into his face and quirked one of her expressive eyebrows at him.

Smyslov was looking over her shoulder, grinning as well. Smith realized he was lying on the deck in the forward compartment of the bomber. He was vague for a moment on just what they all were doing there; then full memory came crashing back.

“Damn it, Val! What do you think you’re doing?”

Both brows lifted. “So I’m enjoying my work?”

“That’s not what I mean!” he exclaimed, struggling to sit up. “This plane is a hot zone! There’s a contaminant-”

“Easy, Jon, easy,” the historian replied, holding him down gently with her hands on his shoulders. “There is no contaminant. You’re fine, we’re fine, and the plane is fine.”

“This is true, Colonel,” Smyslov interjected wryly. “I told you before, barring two tons of weaponized anthrax, there is nothing the least bit dangerous aboard this aircraft.”

Smith sank back and found he was still in most of the MOPP suit. Beyond the glare of the electric lantern that filled the cockpit, he could see a lingering trace of daylight through the windscreen. He must have been unconscious for only a matter of a few minutes. “Then what the hell did happen to me?”

“You almost protected yourself to death.” Smyslov held up the hood of the MOPP suit. “It’s cold in here. The moisture in your breath condensed and froze in the filters of your breathing mask. It gradually cut off your air.”

Valentina nodded. “Something similar happened in Israel during the first Gulf War. During the SCUD bombardment, when it was feared that Saddam might be using nerve gas, a number of Israeli citizens suffocated because they forgot to remove the filter caps on their gas masks. You were rebreathing your own carbon dioxide. Only with you the effect must have come on so gradually that you didn’t notice the buildup.”

Smith looked back over his clearing memories. “Yes. When I started to have breathing problems I first thought I was just having a bad attack of claustrophobia. Then I thought…”

“We know what you thought,” Valentina said softly. “You started to report the symptomology of your own death. But when you began to give us a very good clinical description of a man dying of suffocation, we realized what was going on. We tried to tell you to take off your mask, but you were too far gone to understand.”

She nodded toward the glassed-in nose of the bomber. “We came in through the cockpit window, and Gregori dove into the bomb bay and hauled you out. A little mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and here you are.”

Smith grimaced. “Pardon me while I feel incredibly stupid.”

“I shouldn’t, Jon,” Valentina replied soberly. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like, climbing into that chamber of horrors. Just looking through that hatch was enough to make my skin crawl.” The historian shook her head in profound distaste. “I love fine weapons, but that…thing…isn’t a weapon; it’s a nightmare.”

“I’m not going to argue the point.” Smith smiled up at her. “I suppose I should be making a stink over you and the major for disobeying my direct orders, but I can’t seem to work up much enthusiasm for it. Thank you, Val.”

He extended a hand past her to Smyslov. “And thank you, Major.”