The Pharaoh's Secret by Clive Cussler Page B

description of what they’re trying to do.”
    Kurt was confused. “And why is that?”
    â€œBecause,” she said, “we’re trying to bring your friends and the rest of them back to life.”

12

    For a moment, Kurt was at a loss for words. “Say that again” was all he could muster.
    â€œI don’t blame you for being surprised,” she said. “As Dr. Ravishaw said, the situation is highly irregular.”
    â€œMore like crazy,” he replied. “You can’t really believe you’re going to reanimate people like some kind of witch doctor?”
    â€œWe’re not ghouls,” she said. “It’s just that the men and women in that cargo bay aren’t dead. At least not yet. And we’re desperately trying to find some method of waking them back up before they do pass on.”
    Kurt considered what she was saying. “I checked several of them myself,” he replied. “They weren’t breathing. On my rounds, while I was waiting for the Italian military to arrive, I passedrooms filled with patients hooked up to EKGs: there were no heartbeats.”
    â€œYes,” she said, “I’m aware of that. But the fact is, they are breathing and their hearts are pumping blood. It’s just that their respiration is extremely shallow and occurring at long intervals, with less than one breath every two minutes on average. Their heart rates are hovering in the single digits and the ventricular contractions are so weak that a typical monitor won’t pick them up.”
    â€œHow can that be?”
    â€œThey’re in a type of coma,” she said, “a type we’ve never seen before. With a normal coma, certain parts of the brain are switched off. Only the deepest, most primitive sections continue functioning. It’s assumed that the body does this as a defense mechanism, allowing the brain or body to heal itself. But these patients show residual activity in all parts of their brains, yet they’re unresponsive to any drug or stimuli we’ve tried so far.”
    â€œCan you give that to me in layman’s terms?”
    â€œNo damage has been done to their brains,” she said, “but they can’t wake up. If you imagine them to be computers, it’s as if someone put them on standby or sleep mode and no amount of pressing the on switch will get them functioning again.”
    Kurt knew just enough human physiology to get himself in trouble, so he decided to ask rather than jump to conclusions. “If their hearts are pumping so softly and infrequently and pumping such little amounts of blood, and their breathing is so restrained, don’t they risk oxygen deprivation and brain damage?”
    â€œHard to say,” she replied. “But we think they’re existing in a state of suspended animation. Low body temperatures and low levels of cellular activity mean their organs are using very little oxygen. That could mean the shallow breathing and weak cardiovascular activity is enough to keep them healthy, enough to keeptheir brains intact. Have you ever seen someone pulled from frigid water after a near drowning?”
    Kurt nodded. “Years back, I rescued a boy and his dog from a frozen lake. The dog had chased a squirrel onto the ice and got stuck when his hind legs broke through. The boy tried to help him, but the ice cracked and both of them plunged into the water. By the time we got them out, the poor child was blue, he’d been underwater for seven minutes or more. He should have been long dead. The dog should have died too, but the paramedics were able to bring them both back. The boy ended up being fine. No brain damage at all. Is that what we’re talking about here?”
    â€œWe hope so,” she said, “though it’s not exactly the same. In the boy’s case, the frigid water caused a spontaneous reaction in his body that could be reversed once he was brought back to