The Fungus

An unpleasant thought suddenly occurred to Wilson. He immediately checked the locker containing the spare radio, and saw at once the seals were broken. One look inside was enough to show him that the set was beyond repair.

“Well, that’s it then,” he said sourly. “Even if we get Jane to talk there’s no way we can transmit the information.”

“Yes, there is,” said Carter. “I’m a one-time radio ham. Cost my father a fortune when I was a teenager, and I had to give it up when I began my medical studies, but there still isn’t much I don’t know about radios. I’ve been cannibalizing equipment at British Telecom, building makeshift receivers. The fungus gets into them pretty quickly but I’ve been able to keep a step ahead of it. That’s how I picked up those messages meant for you. I’m sure I can rig up a transmitter. There are still plenty of spare parts sealed up at the Post Office Tower.”

“And you say that’s where Jane is? At the Tower?”

Carter nodded his bulbous head. “Right at the very top. Her followers guard the only way up there.”

Wilson frowned. He was still having trouble accepting the incredible story that Carter had told him about Jane. “You say these people actually worship her? But why?”

“They obviously believe her when she tells them she created the fungus and controls it. Her followers are all women, by the way, though what the significance is of that I don’t know yet.”

“But what’s she doing in the top of Post Office Tower?” asked Wilson.

“I’ve heard rumors she’s established some sort of laboratory up there.”

“You think she might be working on a way of stopping the fungus?”

“From what I hear about her I doubt it very much.”

Wilson sighed. “Well, at least she’s still alive and rational enough to organize a lab. That means she’s probably still capable of looking after the kids. I’m sure she wouldn’t let any harm come to them, no matter what the state of her mind.” He turned to Kimberley. “Stop wasting that water.” She was still splashing it over herself and frantically peering at her skin.

“I have to know if it’s on me yet,” she cried, then, as before, turned her back to him. “Can you see it anywhere? Tell me the truth.”

He gave her back a cursory look. “You’re fine,” he told her, then salvaged a cup from the debris. “Move aside, I’m thirsty.”

“You don’t seem to care!” she accused him as he gulped down a cupful of water. “We’re going to look like that thing over there, and you don’t give a damn!”

She was pointing at Carter.

Wilson said nothing. Instead he filled the cup again and handed it to Carter.

Kimberley muttered something under her breath and went to the rear door. “Where are you going?” Wilson asked her.

“I’m going outside for a pee. I can hardly have one in here.”

That was true. The cubicle housing the chemical toilet was now horizontal. “Don’t go too far from the truck,” he warned her. “And keep an eye out for anything moving.”

He watched her as she climbed out of the open airlock. She seemed completely oblivious to her nakedness and he felt a sluggish revival of his desire for her — a desire that had been dormant for some time.

“A very attractive woman,” commented Carter. “Yes,” agreed Wilson, uncomfortably aware that his partial arousal was physically evident. “I wish she had something to wear. I wish I had something to wear.”

Carter made his wheezing laugh and said, “You don’t have any spare clothing with you?”

Wilson told him about the fungus attack that had cleaned them out of everything organic.

“Well,” said Carter, “You really don’t need clothes in London anymore, as far as the climate is concerned. The fungus seems to have raised the average temperature by at least five degrees. And the humidity has increased, too.”

“And after a while the fungus even clothes you as well,” said Wilson bitterly.

“Yes, there is that,” conceded Carter. “But you two have been lucky so far. Perhaps those drugs have given you permanent immunity.”

“Perhaps,” said Wilson though he didn’t believe it for a second.

After a pause, Carter said, “An odd choice for this expedition. Your traveling companion, I mean.”

“Kimberley? At first I didn’t think so. Seemed as hard as nails. But then when she found out the Megacrine drug wasn’t all it was cracked up to be she began to go to pieces. I guess she believed she was 100 percent safe from the fungus, otherwise she would never have come.”

“And why exactly has she come?”

“That, Dr. Carter, is a good question.”

Kimberley moved some distance away from the truck, taking care to avoid the still-smoldering remains of the creatures. The knot of terror in the pit of her stomach was like an unbearable physical pain. She felt so scared and helpless, but there was nowhere she could run, nowhere she could hide to avoid the inevitable infection. It was probably growing inside her already.

At the beginning the odds for pulling off her gamble had seemed in her favor, but now.