The War of Immensities by Barry Klemm Page B

look around and ask. “Okay.
So we are here, after many adventures, but where are we?”
    Lorna too,
needed to survey the scene. She balled her sandwich wrapped and
threw it in the nearby bin, and looked again. “We’re not there yet,
are we?” she said solemnly.
    “No,” Chrissie
said. “I don’t know how I know that but I do. We’re not even
close.”
    “Well, this is
as far as we can go in this direction without getting wet and one
dunking a day is enough for me, thank you very much.”
    “But we must to
go on,” Chrissie said and even as she did she sensed the agitation
growing, her whole body agreeing with her. “What can we do? Get a
boat?”
    “I think it’s
further than that,” Lorna said thoughtfully. “I think we have to go
over to Australia.”

*

    Felicity
Campbell stood by the glass, regarding Barbara Crane and Dr James
Turley with quiet dismay. In the room, they could observe the
figure of Kevin Wagner, with both arms and legs in traction.
    “We’ve had to
strap him down,” Turley was saying.
    “Yes. He’s
obviously very agitated,” Felicity said. She didn’t need to read
any monitors or charts to see that. Kevin Wagner shook and squirmed
those parts of his body still capable of it.
    “Poor man,”
Barbara Crane was saying. “He’s lost everything.”
    Felicity
frowned. “And no one has claimed him?”
    “We even had
the Minister for Foreign Affairs involved for a little while,
stirring up action in the States,” Barbara Crane said methodically.
“But so far, we haven’t been able to turn up anyone who wants to
take responsibility for him. He was an only child, both parents
dead, and his wife’s family had their own bereavements to contend
with. Three lovely little children, apparently, all gone.”
    “Surely his
wife’s family has some responsibility...” Felicity murmured.
    “I get the
impression they didn’t like our Kevin much,” Barbara said. “I
gather he was a bit of an adventurer and away from home a lot.”
    “What sort of
adventurer?”
    “Well, I
understand he was selling diving and salvage equipment...”
    “What about his
employer?”
    “He’d left his
job to come here.”
    “So we’re stuck
with him.”
    “For the
moment. Anyway, he seemed happy here, until this started
yesterday.”
    “Yes,” Felicity
said. “But under the circumstances, an extensive traumatic reaction
to his tragedy and his condition is to be expected.”
    “Agreed,” Dr
Turley said, and looked apologetically. “I’m sorry to have bothered
you.”
    “Oh no, Dr
Turley,” Felicity smiled. “You did the right thing. But I can’t
offer any suggestions that you haven’t already tried. Nevertheless,
I am interested. Do let me know if his condition changes.”

*

    The sign in the
foyer of The Golden Dolphin declared that Andromeda Starlight’s
performances were cancelled due to illness.
    “I guess she
just ain’t recovered from that volcano that got her,” Joel Tierney
explained to the management. It was true in as many ways as it was
a lie. He kept her in her room where she sometimes thrashed so
violently that he feared she was suffering an OD. When he thought
about hospitals, he thought about cops. Joel sat at the bedside
mostly, sweating as much as she did.

*

    First they took
his battery away, but that only meant he tried to roll himself away
by hand, which he was just simply not able to do at that stage of
his convalescence. He didn’t make it much further than out into the
corridor.
    “Joe, where the
hell do you think you can go?” the nurse asked in exasperation.
    “I can’t stay,”
he said. “I have to go.”
    When they took
away the wheelchair as well, still he tried to get out of bed, and
presumably make his escape by rolling on the floor. In the end,
even Joe agreed that it might be for the best if they sedated
him.

*

    The drive back
was a nightmare. Lorna fought her way forward, against nausea and
her every instinct insisting she turn the car around