Gary Brandner - The Brain Eaters

“Is all right,” he said.

“But I’ll be around with the cart if you’d care for something to drink. They’re free this flight.”

“Good.” Kuryakin made himself smile. Americans, he had observed, smiled at one another constantly without reason. Maybe not so much now as before the brain eaters came.

There was a delay of half an hour before the United flight was cleared for take-off. Kuryakin sat tensely all the while, expecting at any moment to be grasped by rough hands and pulled off the plane. It still amazed him that it was so easy to travel in this country without so much as being asked for one’s papers. How could the Americans possibly keep track of their people?

He had a momentary pang of conscience about leaving Raslov. Viktor would have to do some powerful explaining about the disappearance of his countryman. Kuryakin would gladly have included Raslov and even the KGB thick necks in his plan if he thought they would be amenable. He knew, however, that his thinking in that matter was unorthodox, and he was not likely to find any support from the others.

The decision to act had been made impulsively when he saw the opportunity offered by the confusion in the airport. Once he had decided what he must do, there was no question in Kuryakin’s mind of where to go. The American authorities were out of the question. He had heard of the prisons into which people like him were thrown. The political authorities there were no more to be trusted than they were in Russia. They were as bad as the police or the army.

The only people he felt free talking to were other men of science. Theirs was an international language that transcended politics. They could be trusted. True, there were scientists who had gone bad. Nazi Germany was a prime example. It was possible that he was making a mistake, but he had made his choice, and there was now no turning back.

When they were airborne, the young woman came as promised, pulling a cart loaded with liquor. Kuryakin selected a tiny bottle of vodka. The name sounded Russian, but it was an American product. Nevertheless, Kuryakin felt it was a small gesture of loyalty on his part.

Eddie Gault woke up feeling better. Much better. He decided he had not had the flu after all.

He got out of bed, pulled on a bathrobe, and went looking for Roanne. He found her in the living room watching TV with the sound turned low. She snapped off the picture when he came into the room.

“Well, you’re looking chipper,” she said.

“Feel fine.” He nodded toward the blank television screen. “Was that the news?”

“News is about all that’s on nowadays. Just the same old stuff.”

“What’s happening at the plant?” he asked. “Have they opened up again?”

Roanne eyed him strangely. “No. They’re going to be closed a long, long time.”

“You mean they shut everything down?”

“Almost. They say Kitzmiller is back. He and a few others are staying out there and doing something in the laboratories. Nobody else except security.”

“What’s he doing there? — Dr. Kitzmiller?”

“The television says he’s trying to find an antidote for the brain eaters.”

“Brain eaters? Oh, God.” Eddie moaned and sank into a chair. “For just a minute there I forgot about them. It seemed like a fever dream.”

“No dream, Eddie,” she said.

“Oh, God. God.”

“It won’t do you any good to carry on that way. What’s done is done.”

“What’s been happening the last couple of days? I felt so lousy I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Some people were killed at the plant.”

“Jesus, how did that happen?”

Roanne told him about the Biotron massacre as gently as she could, minimizing the role of the brain eaters as the cause of it all.

As she spoke, she watched Eddie carefully.

He sucked at a raw hangnail on his thumb.

“Are you sure you feel all right, Eddie? Do you think you should be up?”

“I told you, I feel fine. I’ve got to think. I’ve got to do something.”

“You’ll just give yourself a headache.” Roanne’s expression changed suddenly. “You don’t have a headache, do you?”

“No.” He eyed her suspiciously. “Why do you ask that?”

“I’m just worried about you.”

“Did you think maybe those things, those brain eaters, had gotten to me?”

“No, of course not.”

“Might serve me right if they did.”

“Don’t talk that way.”

“I mean it. I’m the one let ‘em loose. Serve me right if they got into my brain, too.”

A sharp retort formed in Roanne’s throat, but she swallowed it. She went over and stood in front of Eddie’s chair. In a voice that caressed him, she said, “Baby, I don’t want to hear you say that. You’re too important to me.”

“Am I?” he said listlessly.

“You know you are.”

She moved closer, gently pushing his legs apart and stepping between them.

“I got to think,” he said.

“There’s plenty of time to think,” she said.

“People are dying. Lots of people. And it’s my fault.”

“Everybody dies, Eddie.” She tried to lighten it up. “Besides, a little depopulation wouldn’t hurt this country. We’ve talked about that.”

“I don’t know. I just feel it’s wrong.”

She went down to her knees. “There’s nothing you can do now, baby. Nothing.”

“I can at least take the responsibility for what I did.”

“That wouldn’t help anybody. They’d only hurt you. And me.”

With deft fingers she started working on his belt buckle.

Eddie covered her hands with his own. “Not now.”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes half-closed, pale lips barely parted. It was a look that had always got him hot before, but now he only shook his head.

“Don’t, Roanne. I don’t feel like it. I got to think.”

He stood up and walked into the kitchen, leaving Roanne kneeling before the empty chair. She looked after him and frowned.

Viktor Raslov’s search of the San Francisco terminals had barely gotten under way when he froze at the sound of a polite voice behind him.

“Mr. Raslov?”

He turned to see one of those smooth-faced young men with the old eyes who were favored by the United States as police operatives.

“Yes?”

“I’m Kyle Taylor, sir. I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Big surprise, thought Raslov sourly. “So?”

“Would you mind coming along with me?”

What if I minded? Raslov wondered. Would Agent Taylor shoot him down there in front of all these witnesses? No, the Americans were more devious than that. More probably, the other agents now edging casually closer through the crowd would seize him, and they would take him to some quieter locale to be shot. Discretion. The Americans were always discreet.

Aloud he said, “I think you have made a mistake. I am a Russian citizen.” A token show of indignation would be expected.

“It’s a routine matter, sir,” Agent Taylor said. The old eyes in his young face scanned the crowd. “And would you ask your … associates to come with us?”

There was just enough of a pause to let Raslov know that Taylor knew exactly who the “associates” were. It was all part of the game. The elaborate game of pretense and deceit upon which the ultimate fate of the world might depend.

Raslov sighed and signaled the KGB men to accompany him and the FBI agent.

They returned to Neal Henderson’s office, from which the young assistant airport manager was, for the moment, absent.

“What I want to do,” said Agent Taylor with a hard-edged smile, “is to apologize to you for the delay in your flight.”