Roberta groaned in terror. Sylvia wanted to stay and comfort her, but she had to go.
“You’re safe now,” she said, reassuringly rubbing Roberta’s good arm. “I’ll be back soon.”
Sylvia went back into the hall and toward the center of the ship where the research staff would have been monitoring the results of the test run.
On the way, she passed an office. Two men were inside, both slumped on the floor. Sylvia checked on them, and they were breathing but immobile. She reassured them that she would get help and continued on.
Three more people she found were in a similar state. Sylvia now suspected that everyone on board had been affected with the same paralysis.
A sudden realization made Sylvia catch her breath. The gas from the rocket fired by the trimaran had to be the source of the condition. Which meant she might be affected as well.
She did a quick self-assessment of her body. She felt no difference in the function of her limbs, not even a tingling sensation. All her muscles seemed to work properly, and she had no trouble speaking. Whatever the gas was, it hadn’t begun to affect her, at least not yet.
Given that people were still at their posts, they must have been affected quickly, but she had no idea how long it would take the gas to dissipate and become inert. She went to the nearest fire station, which held two gas masks. She put one on and went back to the galley to get a pair of latex gloves from the med kit. She checked on Roberta to make sure she was all right and found that there was no change in her condition.
Sylvia left the galley and didn’t stop until she reached the control room.
The data control center was a long room with two rows of workstations facing a wall of monitors that still showed readouts from the experiment they’d conducted that morning.
There were ten people in the room, some of whom were still in their chairs. Most of them lay on the floor.
One of those still sitting was Mark Murphy. Angular and thin, with a wild mess of hair and wisps of stubble that he was desperately trying to grow into a beard, Mark was only a few years older than Sylvia, and he dressed like the skateboarder and heavy metal fan that he was. No one seeing him in his all black ensemble of T-shirt and jeans would guess his intellect and academic credentials.
Mark was rigid in his swivel chair. Sylvia rotated it to face him.
“Mark, it’s me, Sylvia.”
As soon as he recognized who she was, he gave her a weak smile and moved his jaw, but only grunts came out.
She took his left hand. “I was so worried about you. Are you all right?”
He made a sound that clearly meant, “Are you kidding?”
r /> “Sorry,” Sylvia said. “Stupid question. I meant, are you in pain?”
He shook his head in jerks.
“Can you feel my hand?”
Mark moved his head in what Sylvia interpreted to be a nod.
She choked back a sob. Mark Murphy was her half brother, and they’d grown up together with their mother, who had Sylvia after she divorced Mark’s dad and remarried. Despite their differences, her genius brother had always been her best friend and someone she admired. Seeing her sibling in this awful condition was heartbreaking.
She noticed he was rhythmically tapping on the right arm of his chair. No, it wasn’t a rhythm. The index finger on his right hand made long and short taps in a pattern that she instantly recognized. Although she didn’t know Morse code, she understood the message conveyed by three short taps, then three long ones followed by three more short taps.
SOS
Mark was trying to communicate with her.
“Morse code,” she cried out. It was the first time she felt any hope since the trimaran had arrived.
Mark responded with a grunted, “Uh-huh.”
Sylvia had to call for help, that was clear. If all forty-two people on board were in the same situation as the ones she’d already seen, they would be in dire straits soon. But the trimaran had destroyed the communications array, so a radio call was out.
“I can’t send a distress call,” Sylvia said. “All the antennas on the Empiric were destroyed.”
He shook his head and began tapping again, this time with a different message. Sylvia knew Mark served on a ship, so it made sense that he knew Morse, but she didn’t.