V - The Original Miniseries by Kenneth Johnson Page A

sake!"
     
William hesitated for a brief second, filling his lungs with a deep breath, then plunged inside. Graham watched him go, torn between trying to stop the Visitor technician and tending to Jennings. He turned as a hand grabbed his shoulder. "What's happening?"
    It was Steven. Graham gestured helplessly. "William went in there after Caleb!" "What?" Steven glanced into the frozen darkness of the hatchway, his features hardening.
    Graham stripped off his coat and laid it over Jennings, who was still unconscious, but moaning now. "It's got to be three hundred below zero in there-they're both goners. Nothing human could-" Graham broke off in confusion as he stared into the Visitor officer's eyes. They were flat and cold-shards of ice in that otherwise handsome countenance.
Shouts echoed around them, and both Graham and Steven turned to see what was happening. William emerged from the hatchway, supporting Caleb Taylor. The older man seemed barely conscious, his dark skin and hair frosted white. He twitched uncontrollably as bouts of shivering hit him.
    Bill Graham moved quickly to help William lower Caleb to the catwalk. The Visitor technician seemed unharmed, except for his face and hands, which were covered with large, bumpy blisters, whitish in color. Dark cracks seemed to furrow the skin around the raised areas. Graham glanced quickly at Jennings-then at Caleb. Though both men were rimed with frost, their skins roughened by the frostbite, neither displayed those disfiguring blisters.
William, catching Graham's eyes on his face, turned away, ducking his head. Steven leaned over him, blocking Bill's view of the technician.
    "The ambulance is coming!" The shout was followed almost immediately by a wail, then the screech of brakes below the catwalk. Graham looked over to see the paramedics pile out. "We'll need three stretchers up here!" he shouted.
"You'd better sit down, William," he said. "The ambulance is here. Are you in much pain?" The Visitor technician didn't raise his head. His voice sounded even stranger than usual-a highpitched, muffled tone accompanied the usual reverberation. "No. I am okay."
     
"I'm taking him back to the shuttle," Steven said. "Our doctors will deal with this."
    "Don't you think-" Graham caught the Visitor officer's eye and stopped abruptly. Perhaps it was a blast of the frozen vapor from the open hatchway behind him that made him shudder suddenly, violently.
    DOCTOR BENJAMIN TAYLOR SAT AT A MICROSCOPE, PEERING INtently into the eyepiece. Ruth Barnes sat across the laboratory from him, labeling specimen dishes. The door banged open to reveal Doctor Metz. "Where are those cultures, Ruth? I can't proceed without them!"
Ben glanced over at the middle-aged woman, saw pain, quickly hidden, shadow her eyes at Metz's brusque tone. "They're not back from pathology, Doctor."
     
Taylor saw Metz's frown deepen-hastily spoke up in Ruth Barnes's behalf. "They're running way behind there, Doctor Metz."
    She nodded. "I heard that two of the top technicians didn't show up for work today. They didn't even call in!" Ruth, who hadn't missed a day of work since Ben had first known her when he was still a med student, sounded scandalized.
    Metz pursed his lips. "That's odd. Who are they?" "Morrow and Prentiss."
"I must say, with their work records, I'd never have expected such a cavalier attitude from them." Metz shook his head.
     
"Maybe there's a good rea-" The laboratory phone interrupted Ben. He picked it up. "Doctor Taylor here."
     
He recognized Juliet Parrish's voice, but couldn't recall ever hearing it so strained and anxious. "Benget down to the ER, stat. They just brought in your father."
    When the three reached the emergency room, Caleb was conscious, barely. Ben clasped his father's hand, shocked at how dreadfully cold it was, while he listened to the ambulance technician summarize the accident at Richland. "How did he get out of there?" Ruth asked.
    "One of the Visitor technicians carried him out,