Scorpion [Scorpions 01]

by Michael R. Linaker

  ‘Will you be able to prove it?’

  Chris smiled. ‘I hope so.’

  They finished eating. Chris put the tray on the floor beside the bed and slid under the covers.

  ‘Hey!’ she said, prodding Allan in the ribs.

  He glanced down at her. ‘I should be getting ready for work,’ he said.

  ‘Last night was so nice,’ she said. ‘I mean, just having you there next to me. Even though we didn’t do anything except sleep.’ A gentle flush colored her smooth cheeks. ‘This morning I feel different… ‘

  ‘Chris, I’ll be late.’

  She pressed her warm body against his, sliding one hand down his hard stomach, fingers touching him lightly.

  ‘Damn you, Chris, that’s a lousy thing to…’

  The bed creaked softly as they came together, merging, desire and physical flesh becoming fused into one.

  Allan had one last clear, logical thought before he gave in to the rising demands of his passion - Camperly’s going to be bloody wild!

  ***

  Oddly Gamperly was not raving, or yelling, or foaming at the mouth with fury. If he had been, Allan could have dealt with it. Instead Camperly was cold and calm almost to a ridiculous degree.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ he said. ‘One of my own staff allowing himself to become a party to journalistic speculation and sensationalism. It is utterly beyond me.’

  Allan felt like a schoolboy being chastised by a headmaster.

  ‘Scorpions! Whatever next? My God, if this gets around I’ll be a laughing stock!’ He stared across his desk at Allan. ‘If this comes back on me, Doctor Brady, I’ll be damned if I go down alone!’

  ‘The newspaper article was none of my doing,’ Allan protested, knowing that he was wasting his time. ‘It was only after the victim described what had bitten him that I started to think about scorpions.’

  Camperly scowled at him. ‘Think? I’m beginning to realize, Doctor Brady, that every time you make the effort and actually create thoughts, we have problems.’

  Allan forced himself to remain silent.

  ‘Who was this reporter you talked to?’ Camperly asked.

  ‘Bill York I think his name was.’

  Camperly wrote the name down. ‘We have had an uncomfortable, long, very hot summer. It’s upset everyone and everything. Do you realize this year’s pollen-count has risen dramatically? That there are flowers and plants growing and blooming in abundance that normally can only be raised in strictly controlled greenhouses? That there has been a virtual doubling of the wasp and bee populations?’

  ‘You can’t convince me, Doctor Camperly, that the cases I’ve investigated were nothing more than aggravated bee stings!’

  ‘Nor will you, Brady, be allowed to go around giving credence to wild speculation about phantom scorpions!’

  ‘Damnit, Doctor Camperly, you know as well as I do there’s a colony of the things down the coast!’

  ‘Totally harmless creatures that have adapted to a new environment. They don’t even relate to their antecedents.’

  ‘Maybe they’ve reverted.’

  Camperly snorted his derision. He snatched up the internal phone and viciously stabbed at the dial. ‘Ah, McFee. Would you kindly come to my office.’ He replaced the phone, glancing coldly at Allan. ‘Isn’t it time you started some work. Doctor Brady?’

  Allan left the office. He knew he hadn’t heard the last of the matter. Nor had he any intention of dropping it himself. On the way down to the lab he passed Fergus McFee. The Scot glanced at him and raised his hands in puzzlement.

  Allan worked through until lunchtime. He thought of missing his break to make up for being late, but he wasn’t feeling in a relenting mood. He took off his lab coat and walked up to the hospital cafeteria. He helped himself to a cheerless meal from the self-service area, found himself a table and sat down. He played around with the food.

  ‘So there you are - chum!’

  Allan glanced up. Fergus McFee was looming over the table. He was wearing a baggy raincoat that dripped water on to the cafeteria floor. His hair was plastered to his skull, and he didn’t look very happy.

  ‘If I catch cold and die,’ he hissed dramatically as he sat down, ‘I’ll come back and bloody haunt you!’

  ‘Me? What have I done?’

  McFee picked up a spoon and began to stir lumps of sugar into the cup of tea he’d brought with him. ‘Don’t play dumb with me, you English twit! You and your damn theories.’

  ‘Fergus, I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  McFee sighed. ‘For the last couple of hours - at Camperly’s request - I’ve been out at the old dockyard, crawling about on my hands and knees to find him some specimens of those bloody scorpions that live there!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Soaking wet,’ McFee grumbled. ‘Cold and bloody wet. All on account of you and your nappy mouth!’

  ‘Did you find any?’ Allan asked.

  ‘Find what? Oh - yes. Finally prodded a couple out of a crack in some brickwork. Nasty wee things!’ McFee shuddered. ‘They’re on Camperly’s desk now.’

  ‘I wonder what he’s up to?’

  ‘Hopefully he’s working on the most effective place on your anatomy where he can stuff them to get the best effect!’

  ‘I’m going to give Chris a call.’ Allan said.

  As he moved away from the table Allan heard McFee say: ‘Funny thing out there. That dockyard used to be swarming with the things. Not anymore. I don’t think there were many left there at all.’

  The remark lingered at the back of Allan’s mind as he crossed to the phone on the cafeteria wall. He dialed Chris’s number and listened to it ring. There was no reply. He hung up, faintly disappointed. At least he would see her that night. It was something he was looking forward to.

  Later that afternoon Allan was called to Camperly’s office. His superior was not alone. Bill York, the reporter from the local paper, was there. So was a photographer. There were also a couple of men carrying tape recorders. Camperly introduced them as news reporters from local radio stations, one was from the area’s BBC station, the other from a commercial station.

  ‘All right, gentlemen,’ Camperly said. ‘I explained when I contacted you the reason why I have called this little conference. It is to clear up some misconceptions over the recent unfortunate outbreak of insect stingings. As you are all no doubt aware there was a rash conclusion reached yesterday that could easily be escalated out of proportion. It is this that I wish to put right. The policy of this department of research is not to give public pronouncements until full and proper investigations have been carried out. This applies to all aspects of our work. I was not here yesterday, when certain statements were made concerning the outbreak I mentioned a moment ago. It was said that the cause, or should I say the perpetrator, of the stingings we have had, is the scorpion. Here and now I am saying officially, that there is no truth or substance in that assumption.’

  Allan stiffened. He stared across the office and caught Camperly’s cold stare. The look in Camperly’s eyes warned Allan not to say a word, or he would regret it.

  ‘I am not going to be so stupid,’ Camperly continued, ‘as to pretend that there are no scorpions in this area. There are.’ He held up a flat, clear, plastic box. ‘These are two of them. Specimens collected by one of my staff only a couple of hours ago.’

  Camperly held up the box so that everyone could get a good look. The photographer took a few shots of the box and its contents.

  The scorpions were no more than a few inches long, a pale, red-brown color. They remained motionless beneath the plastic lid, hardly responding when Camperly tapped the side of the box.

  ‘Over many years and generations these scorpions have changed their physical make-up as well as their habits. Their natural enemies no longer bother them so they have lost the need for the hard shell on their bodies. Likewise, the pigmentation has altered to suit the new surroundings. Originally they would hav
e been dark in color - now they are the color you see. It blends in with their surroundings. Insects are much more able to adapt to new surroundings than man. Their cell structure is nowhere near as complex as the human animal. It is on a much lower scale, therefore they can alter their appearance and their physical development in a short time.’

  ‘What about the sting?’ asked one of the radio reporters.

  ‘In their adopted home they have ceased to use the sting. The fight for survival would have been less, food easier to come by. As the sting became of less importance, through successive generations, it lost its potency. The poison-sac dried up and the tail became a useless appendage.’

  The newspaper reporter, Bill York, pointed his pen at the boxed scorpions. ‘Those stings look real enough to me,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll show you,’ Camperly said. He placed the box on his desk and opened the lid. He reached in and picked up one of the scorpions, holding it between thumb and forefinger. He held it out. The scorpion’s legs flailed at the air, its body squirming in Camperly’s grasp.

  ‘Be careful!’York gasped.

  ‘I’m perfectly safe,’ Camperly said. He placed the scorpion on the back of his hand. It squatted there, motionless. Camperly poked it with his finger. The scorpion stirred restlessly. Again Camperly prodded its body, pressing down hard. The scorpion made a vain attempt to get from under his finger. When it failed it ceased struggling. It was only after a little time had gone by that it began to move its curving tail.

  ‘You see, gentlemen,’ Camperly said, ‘it’s forgotten how to defend itself.’ He jabbed his finger down again. ‘It may strike out of a simple reflex action.’ As he spoke the scorpion looped its tail over its flat head, the tip pointing down towards Camperly’s hand. The curved sting at the end of the tail sank briefly into the back of Camperly’s hand and out again. ‘You see!’ Camperly said triumphantly. He scooped the scorpion off his hand and dropped it back in the box, sliding the lid in place. He held out his hand for the reporters to see. The sting had left only a small puncture mark. ‘No worse than a pin prick.’

  ‘How do you know there isn’t any poison in there?’ someone asked.

  ‘If there was,’ Camperly said, ‘I’d be reacting to it by now. I can assure you, gentlemen, that I feel fine. But to convince you, please stay for as long as you wish.’

  ‘If it wasn’t a scorpion that stung the man yesterday, Doctor Camperly, what was it?’ Bill York asked.

  ‘I’ll be honest and say that right now we don’t know - as we don’t know yet just what caused the other stingings. Which brings me back to my earlier point. I refuse to issue statements until a definite and fully conclusive investigation has been carried out. Wild speculation has no place in scientific research.’

  ‘But what about the men who said it was a scorpion that they killed?’

  ‘How many people in this country have ever seen a live scorpion? And how many, given the opportunity, enjoy exaggerating something that has happened to them?’

  ‘Are you saying those men were wrong?’

  ‘I’m saying they could have been mistaken. In a moment of panic a man could look at a large bee and get a disproportionate image of that very insect.’

  ‘And do you think bees were responsible for the other attacks?’

  ‘Our investigations will eventually give us the answers we are seeking. Gentlemen, if you will give me one moment, I will take you round our little establishment and show you exactly how we function.’

  Camperly crossed the office and confronted Allan. There was a smug expression on his face.

  ‘I think the word, Doctor Brady, is checkmate,’ he said.

  ‘I would have said bluff, Doctor Camperly. Right now it’s working for you - but I think you’re in for a surprise before too long.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Camperly said. ‘That’s all for now, Doctor Brady.’

  Allan left the office just ahead of the others. As they moved by him Bill York held back. He glanced at Allan.

  ‘I think that performance was aimed more at you than us,’ he said.

  Allan smiled. ‘He knocks my legs from under me so often I just don’t notice any more.’

  ‘I reckon he’s convinced the others.’

  ‘And you?’ Allan asked.

  York shrugged. ‘He talks a lot of sense,’ he said and walked on.

  Allan stood for a time, deep in thought, and then carried on back to the lab. The only thing he was fully convinced about was the fact that he had got much nearer the truth than Camperly would ever accept. All he had to do now was prove it.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A week passed without a single stinging. There were no reports of anyone seeing anything out of the ordinary. A number of factors contributed to this situation. The weather had gradually changed; the late summer heat wave finally broke, temperatures dropped, rain and wind became an almost daily occurrence. The visitors to the area parallel with the coast road dwindled; the sun seekers and the picnickers, the hikers and the lovers, sought their diversions elsewhere and left the stretch of wild green countryside to the elements.

  Allan Brady accepted the situation with grim reluctance. He still held on to the theory that scorpions had been responsible for the attacks. He had no way of explaining their existence or the reason behind it, so he kept his thoughts to himself - only ever voicing them to Chris.

  For Chris, matters had taken a turn for the better in one respect. Jack Webster’s anonymous telephone call to the Department of Nuclear Energy in London had produced startling results. Chris and Jack Webster received an invitation to attend a meeting with Meacham at the plant.

  As they approached the gates Chris peered through the rain-spattered windscreen. Vic Condon stepped forward as she rolled to a halt.

  ‘You sure you want to go in there?’ Condon asked as Chris wound down her window. ‘We might not let you out again.’

  ‘We’ll risk it,’ Chris said. ‘Now, if you’ll open the gates, please, I’m sure Professor Meacham doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’

  Condon glared at her, his face like carved stone. Abruptly he lifted a hand and the security man inside the gatehouse pressed the button that activated the electric gates.

  Chris drove in and followed the signs indicating the administration building. Parking the car she climbed out, Jack Webster following. Inside, they were met by a prim receptionist who hid from the world behind a pair of huge, ugly glasses.

  ‘Mr. Webster is it? And Miss Lane?’ She gestured towards a long corridor leading off from the foyer. ‘This way please.’

  At the far end of the corridor the receptionist tapped on a door and opened it.

  ‘Your visitors are here, Professor Meacham.’

  Meacham came to meet them. He was a tall, spare man, with a high forehead that was exaggerated by the fact that his hair was receding. He was dressed in an ill-fitting tweedy suit.

  ‘Please come in and sit down,’ he said, attempting a friendliness that failed to convince either Chris or Jack Webster.

  Meacham retreated behind his desk.

  ‘I’m glad you were able to accept my invitation.’

  ‘Did you really expect us to refuse?’ Webster asked, his tone brittle.

  ‘I wasn’t sure how you might react.’

  ‘Professor Meacham, we must face the fact that our past relationship has been far from agreeable,’ Chris said.

  ‘True,’ Meacham admitted. ‘It’s one of the reasons why I have asked you here today.’

  ‘What’s the other?’ Webster inquired.

  ‘From noon tomorrow we will be shutting down the auxiliary fast-breeder reactor and the plant will then function on the main reactor only.’

  Jack Webster glanced quickly across at Chris, his face expressionless, giving no indication of his thoughts. Not that Chris needed it putting into words. We’ve done it! she thought.

  Meacham was addressing her.

  ‘Contrary to your opinion of me, Miss Lane, I am not wit
hout sympathy for your movement or its aims.’

  ‘I find that a little hard to believe,’ Chris said. ‘Especially after what took place at our last demonstration.’

  ‘Er… yes… an unfortunate episode for all concerned. The way the affair was - shall we say - conducted did not impress Whitehall in the slightest. It is because of that, and also because the Government wants to keep the public faith, that the order has been issued to run down the auxiliary reactor. There will be press releases and an interview with the Minister in charge of Nuclear Development on both the BBC and ITV news this evening.’

  ‘This is rather an abrupt reversal of government thinking isn’t it, Professor Meacham?’ asked Jack Webster.

  ‘It has been known for governments to change their minds.’

  A slow smile played over Chris’s face as a thought came to her. ‘It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that the opposition has been trying to get a no-confidence motion passed? The possible threat of an election?’

  Meacham shrugged. ‘I am not a political animal, Miss Lane. The intrigue of government is above my head. But I would be a fool if I tried to ignore your suggestion. It is possible that the Government is using the opportunity to gain themselves breathing space - to catch public sympathy in the event of an election. Even so, it is still a victory for you and your movement.’

  ‘Let’s say I’d have an easier time swallowing a live chicken - feathers and all!’Webster retorted. He stirred restlessly in his seat.

  Chris began to get nervous. She knew Jack Webster’s short temper. Right now he was sitting there slowly coming to the boil. If he got mad enough he was liable to point the finger at Meacham and openly accuse him of being nothing more than a hypocritical, oily-tongued conman. While Chris agreed, she couldn’t allow it to happen. Now they had proof of the hushed-up radiation leak. Meacham’s flimsy explanation for the Government’s shutdown was nothing more than a gesture intended to placate the Long Point Protestors; Whitehall would be having a few sleepless nights over the fact that someone had learned about the leak - their immediate concern would be making sure that the story got no further until they could work something out. Chris realized that Whitehall, despite the long-standing image of bumbling inefficiency, could be credited with a self-perpetuating capability for survival. Given enough time, the keen brains that lurked about inside the cocoon of grey buildings would devise a means of getting out of the line of fire. They would probably even announce the facts about the leak themselves - but packaged in such a way that they would end up with public sympathy. Chris wanted to present those facts to the public in her way - the plain, unvarnished truth as she had heard it. So she couldn’t allow Jack Webster the satisfaction of pointing the finger at Professor Meacham.