Текст книги "Noah's Ark: Contagion"

Автор книги: Harry Dayle

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

He was still pondering the question, when he heard the explosion.

Sixteen

MARTIN MUTTERED TO himself as he worked alone. Of all his team of engineers, only two had shown up for work. A couple more had at least had the decency to call him and explain why they were staying in their cabins, and he had no doubt that the others were hiding out for the same reason: they were afraid of catching the virus. It wasn’t exactly broadcast news that there was a morgue on deck one, but gossip travelled fast, and everyone knew exactly what Janice was up to down there. For many in Martin’s team, her activities were too close to the engine room for comfort. Not that they would ever admit that in the macho culture that still ruled in the male-dominated machine rooms below the water line.

The two engineers who had overcome their fear and had been assisting Martin in reconnecting the power supply, had become paralysed within ten minutes of one another. Martin thought they had been messing around, playing the sort of practical joke that was such a common way of relieving the boredom and monotony of life in the windowless engine room. But they hadn’t been joking; their paralysis was real, and when it came, it came quickly and painfully. The chief engineer had called medical straight away, but nobody had answered. And so it was left to him to escort his men to deck eight, wheeling them unceremoniously through the ship on trolleys normally used for carrying heavy equipment.

Deck eight itself had been a surreal experience. Martin had felt like he had stepped into a zombie movie. Behind closed doors, people moaned and groaned heavily. The only people he saw were nurses, rushing from room to room administering what few painkillers remained. Their faces told a story of resignation; they knew they were fighting a losing battle. For the first time, Martin felt afraid. He left his men with Mandy and beat a hasty retreat, desperate to be as far away from this sickness as he could get.

Safely back down in the familiar and friendly surroundings of his engine room, he had got back to the task in hand. The connections to the Ambush, already a rush job, had been cut quickly and shoddily in an effort to get the submarine away as fast as possible. Now he had the difficult task of repairing the almost unrepairable interface between the two vessels.

It was perhaps the stress of trying to carry out such an important task alone. It could have been the fatigue brought on by working such long hours in difficult conditions. Or it could have been the dim emergency lighting, in use because the ship was restricted to running only essential systems on backup power. Whatever the reason, the outcome was the same. As Martin made an elementary error and connected a live cable from the Ambush directly to the battery system, an enormous spark arced across the engine room with an almighty cracking sound, emptying the batteries of their last reserves. The bolt of energy lifted Martin clean off his feet and hurled him through the air. He was fortunate, crashing down on a spaghetti-like heap of cabling that broke his fall. Even so, the impact knocked him out cold.

• • •

“What the…?” Jake looked up at the plume of ash that was rising from the ground above them. The sound of the explosion rang in his ears, and it was a few seconds before he realised Vardy was trying to speak to him.

“I said don’t panic!” the doctor shouted through his mask. “They just blew the door; it’s fine!”

“You could have warned me!”

“I didn’t think it would be that loud to be honest. Quite impressive, wasn’t it?”

“So that’s what was in the crate? Explosives? Bloody hell, I wouldn’t have sat so close if I’d known.”

“Perfectly safe, Jake, just a detonator pinched from a spearfish. One of our torpedoes,” he added, remembering Jake wasn’t a navy man. “Although judging by the noise, I suspect they used some of the explosives too. Hell of a bang, eh?”

Jake felt the ringing in his ears start to subside. “I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of you lot.”

“Shall we get going? It looks like the dust is settling.”

The cloud of ash had mostly dispersed on the wind. Jake was glad of the mask; the powder was so fine that he could imagine it would be easy to breathe it in without realising. He didn’t need to be asked twice, and bounced out of the raft and onto the rubble. Using his gloved hands for support, he scrambled over the concrete boulders without looking back. It felt good to be on land once again, even if it was dangerous and inhospitable land.

He paused only when he reached the top, before stepping onto the ruined dock and the carpet of grey ash. Images of Stacy and Horace melting in the powder streamed through his mind, alongside doubts about the wetsuit he was wearing. Was he sure it was the right kind of rubber? Would it provide adequate protection, or just slow down the action of the ash? A slap on his back shook him from his thoughts.

“Come on then, Captain Noah, what are you waiting for? Out of breath?” Vardy stepped fearlessly onto the greyness, and headed in the direction the explosion had come from.

Jake took a deep breath, and followed. He stepped from the security of his loch-washed boulder and planted one foot firmly on the ground, then the other. He took another step, and looked back at the imprint his improvised shoes had made. He walked forwards gingerly, placing each foot carefully, as if walking a tightrope. The feeling of ash compressing underfoot reminded him of walking in light, powdery snow, and in the dim light from the ever-darkening sky, it was almost possible to imagine that was what it was.

Vardy was a few paces ahead, and was following the footprints left behind by his colleagues. They led towards another stubby column of concrete, perfectly in alignment with that by which they had moored their raft.

They found Eric and Ewan behind the huge pillar. They were sitting on the crate, waiting for the two men. In front of them, set into the round concrete, was an opening. Torn metal framed a black hole. A slab of metal, six inches thick, lay flat on the ground in front of it.

“I wonder why the asteroid didn’t blow the door in?” Vardy wondered aloud as he surveyed the scene.

“Judging by the way the debris is scattered, it came from that way,” Eric said, pointing back towards the loch. “So the pillar provided some protection.”

“The PBX did the job then?”

“Yes. I think we could have got away with using half as much. The door was twice the size before we blew it!”

Jake was peering into the blackness. He could just make out a few steps of a metal stairway. “Right then, are we going to find this machine of yours?” he asked, looking at the three men.

“I’ll lead the way, Captain,” Ewan said. He opened the crate and extracted a gun.

“Is that really necessary?” Jake asked. The look of disappointment on his face was hidden by the gas mask he was still wearing.

“If anyone is in there, they probably won’t be expecting us. We might give them a bit of a shock. Never know how they might react,” Ewan replied.

“Fair enough,” Jake sighed. “But I would have thought that if there was anyone there, not only would your bang have alerted them to our presence, but that they would be pleased to see some friendly faces. Lead on then, Ewan.”

• • •

“Looks like the phones are down too.” Lucya replaced the handset, scratching her head, deep in thought.

“Maybe they had to turn the power off to finish connecting up. You know, and they’ll turn it on again when they’ve tightened all the screws or whatever it is they do down there?”

“I wouldn’t let Martin hear you call him a screw tightener, Chuck; he’s touchy about his skills. And they never switched off the battery backup when they first connected us up. Something’s wrong, I’m sure of it. I’m going to go down there and find out what’s happening. Can you guys keep an eye on Erica?”

“Sure, be a pleasure.”

Lucya left the bridge, giving a little wave to the girl, who smiled back. She felt sick to her stomach about hiding the truth from her.

The ship was still mostly deserted. A few people had found the courage to come out of their cabins, mostly spurred on by a need for food that was greater than their fear of contracting the virus. But their bravery, or desperation, went unrewarded as the restaurants remained closed. As she passed the kitchens she found a small crowd had forced open the door, looking for anything they could find to eat and to feed their hungry families. But the shelves were empty, the kitchen deserted. Lucya knew that the last remaining supplies had been moved to another store room following the fire; that the group would never find anything. But she wasn’t about to tell them that. Instead, she passed on by, heading lower into the ship, down to the engine room. By the time she reached deck one, there was no light. Below the waterline the deck lacked windows. With the batteries out, even the emergency lighting was off. Lucya had to feel her way along the corridors to try and work out the correct route from memory.

“Martin? Are you down here? Anyone? Can anyone hear me?” Her voice echoed down the metal passageways, bouncing off bulkheads and ringing through store rooms. It met only silence.

It wasn’t until she reached the door to the temporary morgue that she realised she had been heading in completely the wrong direction. A thought popped into her head, and she banged on the door.

“Janice? Are you in there?”

She heard the sound of footsteps on the other side. The door clanged, and opened a little way. For a second she was blinded by a brilliant white light.

“Gosh, sorry, hang on! There, that’s better. I’m so sorry about that.”

Lucya blinked and rubbed her eyes, trying to see who was speaking. “Are you Janice?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m Lucya, from the bridge. I’m trying to get to the engine room, but without lights it’s not easy. I thought maybe you might have a torch or something. Looks like I was right.”

“Yes! I have a couple. Some of the nurses managed to find them from somewhere. They’ve been very helpful; the light down here is far from ideal. I can get close in on organs with these. Here, take this one. I’ve opened up enough bodies. Doing any more isn’t going to tell me anything new.”

“Thanks. So, have you, you know, discovered anything? Is this cure they’re talking about going to work?”

“Captain Noah briefed me on the idea, and it sounds reasonable. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. Vaccines usually take years of development. Even if Vardy’s magical machine can manufacture something that tackles the virus, we won’t know if there are any side effects until it’s too late. It’s a big risk.”

“Not a bigger risk than doing nothing though.”

“No, that is true.”

“Are you going to go back to your cabin, if you’ve finished here?”

“You know what? I think I’ll sit it out down here. My cabin is on deck eight, and it sounds like they need all the space they can use up there.”

“Don’t you have someone waiting for you, wondering where you are?”

Janice smiled, but it was a sad smile. “No, I don’t.”

“Oh I’m sorry. You lost your husband to the ash?”

“No! Not at all. I came on this cruise on my own, I didn’t lose anybody.”

Lucya was about to ask a question, but thought better of it. “Right, well thanks for the torch. I’m going to try and find out what’s happening with the power.”

The two women smiled at one another, and Janice pushed the door closed. Lucya walked away slowly, lighting the path with the tiny pocket torch she’d been given. She couldn’t help but feel sorry for the pathologist. Choosing to spend her time in a room full of dead people struck her as very odd indeed, even if the living were hardly in a much better state.

• • •

Ewan extracted four torches from the crate and distributed them among the landing party. He flicked his on and a powerful beam cut through the darkness inside the concrete pillar. Leaving the box outside, and with the L85 rifle in one hand, torch in the other, the submariner stepped into the darkness and began to descend the staircase. The rubber protection on their feet meant that as they followed, none of the men made a sound as they moved underground.

The air was noticeably warmer inside, out of the wind that whipped across the loch. To Jake’s surprise the stairs did not go very deep. They ended in a narrow grey corridor, just wide enough for two men to walk side by side. It sloped away gently, almost imperceptibly. Ewan continued to lead the group, with Eric bringing up the rear. Their torch beams flashed around the featureless concrete walls, but there was nothing to see. After fifty metres they made a sharp turn to the right. Facing them was another door.

“Russell?” Ewan looked at the doctor. “I’ve never used this entrance. How does it work?”

“It’s been a while, but there was a security pass system. You had to hold your badge up to the scanner, there.” With his torch, he picked out a small box mounted on the wall. “But without electricity, that’s clearly not going to work.”

“How thick is the door?”

“Not very, not that I remember. Don’t forget, this whole compound was high security. You needed to go through three checkpoints just to get to that outer door, which was permanently manned too. By the time you got down here the security was less tight. You thinking of blowing this one too?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Ewan was tracing the door frame with his own torch beam. “Best to avoid that sort of thing in this confined space.” He pulled off his gas mask and took a deep breath.

The others did the same. There was no ash underground, and little danger of any making it this deep into the complex. The air was stale. Not like the recycled air on the Ambush though, Jake thought. This air was musty and humid.

Ewan pulled open a pouch that he had tied around his waist. Jake hadn’t noticed it before; it was the same colour as the wetsuit. Inside was a selection of tools, and he selected a tiny electric screwdriver. Eric stepped forward and focussed his light on the door hinges, while Ewan began removing them.

• • •

With her little light to guide her, Lucya found the engine room with ease. She didn’t knock but went straight in.

“Martin? Are you in here? Where are you, Martin?”

The engine room was a huge space. Three massive diesel electric generators dominated the tunnel-like chamber. Lucya found it quite eerie being in the bowels of the ship without the familiar howl of these dirty engines. The stillness and silence gave the place an unreal quality, making it feel almost as if time itself had stopped.

She found Martin where he had fallen, sprawled over the coiled black cable. His head was thrown backwards at a frightening angle and her immediate thought was that his neck had snapped. On closer examination it was clear that wasn’t the case, but it was still a delicate operation to move him into a more suitable position on his side.

With no means of communication, there was no way to call for help. Lucya knew she needed to get him to medical, and the only way to do that was going to be on wheels. Once she was happy that he was in no danger of choking on his own tongue, and that his pulse was stable, she began to search for suitable transport.

Her eye was drawn to a glow coming from a panel directly opposite where Martin was lying on his side. It was emanating from a little red light, just bright enough to be noticeable. It seemed odd to her that in a ship without power, one light remained on. Curiosity got the better of her and she went to take a closer look.

The light was a warning indicator, labelled “Batt. Cool.” As she stood there trying to work out what it could mean, a second indicator lit up. She leaned over and shone her torch on the panel to read its markings. It was labelled “Critical.”

To the right of the warning lights were a set of four meters. Lucya thought they looked a lot like the speedometer from a car, each with a needle swinging around a round scale. The meters were also labelled “Batt. Cool.” Most of the scale was black, but to the far right was a section in orange, marked “Danger” and another section in red, marked “Critical. Risk of Explosion.”

Three of the dials were in the orange sections. The fourth was in the red.

Seventeen

AS THE SCREWS came out of the door hinges, the door itself appeared to try and push outwards, towards the little landing party. It was as if it was straining to burst open. Instinctively, Jake took a couple of steps back. The last hinge gave way without warning, flying off the frame with a pinging sound. The door was flung open from the hinged side. The bolts—still shut on the other side—twisted and buckled, filling the passageway with the sound of metal being wrought out of shape. At the same instant, a cloud of white gas erupted out of the doorway, swirling and eddying around the men.

“Masks!” Eric shouted, pulling his own gas mask over his head.

The three navy men dropped to the floor automatically. Jake followed their lead, all the while scrambling to get his own mask back on. His haste caused the straps to become twisted and tangled, and the urge to breathe was overwhelming. He could hold out no more, and gulped in a lungful of the seething cloud. The gas reached his lungs in a second, and for the briefest of moments he thought he was about to drown. Then the burning started. It was like someone had lit a fire inside his chest. Every filament of his lungs felt as though it was individually exploding, and searing pain flushed through him. He lost his balance and fell back against the wall, his head thumping against the concrete.

“Mask! Get his mask on!” he heard someone shout. He was being pulled in a thousand directions at once, a hundred hands were scrabbling to get the gas mask over his face. All he wanted to do was breathe in cold air, to put out the fire in his chest, but the fear of making the pain worse paralysed him.

“Jake! Breathe! Take a deep breath! Come on, Jake, breathe!”

His head was swimming. Logical thought abandoned him, and with it the fear that prevented him from acting. His body took over, and he began to draw tiny breaths. The filtered air tasted of charcoal and plastic, but it didn’t burn. Oxygen reached his brain, and his mind started to clear. The pain had eased and was replaced with an intense irritation. He wanted to scratch at his insides, to rub away the itch, but it was impossible. All he could do was cough and splutter, but the mask made even that simple action difficult.

A pair of hands grabbed him under his arms and dragged him around the corner, away from the door. His mask was pulled off and he immediately gulped down the cleaner air, coughing and heaving between breaths.

Slowly, he regained control of his body. His lungs felt ready to burst, like he had just run a marathon, but he was breathing normally. He tried to focus on the men sitting around him, although his head was still swimming.

“Wha…” He tried to speak, but only a croak came out. “Wha…” He puffed and wheezed, replacing more of the gas in his lugs with humid, stale air. Someone put a small bottle of water to his lips, and he let the cool liquid run into his throat, cleansing it of mucus and slime. He opened his mouth to speak again: “What happened?”

• • •

Lucya stared at the meters. There was no doubt about it, the needles were definitely creeping upwards towards the red section. She looked back at Martin and make a decision.

“I’ll be back,” she said quietly.

It took her two minutes to run most of the length of the ship, back to the temporary morgue. She hammered on the door with her fist, shouting as she did so.

“Janice! Open up, it’s an emergency!”

The door opened a crack and Janice looked at her, worried.

“Lucya? What is it?”

“I need your help. Martin is injured, and I don’t have time to get him upstairs to medical. You have to take a look at him, see what you can do. There is a problem in the engine room and I’m worried it’s serious. I have to find someone who knows what to do!” The words tumbled out breathlessly.

“Alright, calm down, Lucya. Tell me where to find Martin and I’ll see what I can do.”

Lucya gave directions to the engine room and explained where she would locate him.

“Okay, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Janice said, stepping out into the corridor.

“Don’t you have a bag? You know, a medical bag or something?” Lucya pointed at the doctor’s empty hands.

“My equipment isn’t much use on the living I’m afraid.”

“Right. Of course. Look, I have to go. Take care of him okay?” Without waiting for an answer, she sprinted off towards the stairs.

On reaching deck two her first thought was to try and find some of the other engineers. The trouble was she didn’t know many of them, and had no idea where the cabins could be of the few she might at least recognise by sight. The place was still deserted, every door firmly shut. Knocking on doors to try and find someone qualified could take forever. Instead, she carried on running to the walkway for the Ambush.

Lucya had only been inside the submarine once, on a tour given by Coote for the bridge crew. She hadn’t enjoyed the experience, finding it quite claustrophobic, and had avoided any further visits. Looking across the walkway she tried to bury her fear. She reminded herself that Jake was counting on her. He had left her in charge. Three thousand souls were at risk; there was no time to waste hesitating. She gulped, and set off over the bridge.

Brian was standing guard on the conning tower of the Ambush. He smiled kindly when she arrived, out of breath and flushed red.

“Morning, ma’am,” he said cheerfully. “Are you expected?” Access to the submarine was controlled. All members of the committee could come and go as they pleased. Anyone else needed to be accompanied by a crew member of the Ambush.

“I need to see Coote,” Lucya said. “It’s urgent.”

“I think he’s busy at the moment. Can I give him a message?”

“You ‘think’? We have a situation here, and I need his help, now!”

“Maybe I could ask him to come over and find you?”

“What? No! This is too important. Either get him up here, or I’ll go and find him myself.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you down there ma’am, it’s restricted access.”

“My name is Lucya Levin, I am senior radio officer and a permanent member of the committee. Let me past now, young man, or else!”

Brian straightened himself up, looking sheepish. “I’m so sorry, ma’am, I didn’t recognise you. We don’t see you over here very often.” He stepped to one side. “Please go on down. Coote is in his quarters.”

• • •

“Halon,” Eric said, removing his gas mask once more. “It was halon gas you breathed in. It’s not dangerous, but you’re probably going to have trouble breathing for a while.”

“What happened? Did you cut through a gas line or something?” Jake asked. He felt like his insides had been pummelled, but at least his head was clearing.

“It’s the fire suppression system. There’s too much sensitive and expensive equipment down here to have regular sprinklers, so it uses halon gas. The vibrations from the asteroid must have set it off.”

“And the fact the gas was still in there, under pressure, means nobody has opened that or any other door since the asteroid went over,” Vardy said. “Which means I think we can rule out the idea of there being any survivors holed up down here.”

“Where did they go? The people who worked here?” Jake rubbed his eyes. They stung badly.

“Who knows? If it was me I would have made sure I was underground when that thing came over, but not in here. This base isn’t a hardened bunker; it’s office space.”

“Office space?” Jake looked surprised. “Why build office space underground? If this isn’t a shelter, what are our chances of finding food down here?”

“Honestly? Not great,” Vardy said. “We were underground to stay away from prying eyes, that’s all. I’m surprised this place survived as well as it appears to have done. Maybe we’ll find some clues inside as to where everyone went, but right now we need to find the machine, worry about our own survival. Do you think you can stand? Walk? The gas has started to disperse; it’s venting up through the tunnel. I’d put your mask back on though, for the time being.”

Jake nodded. He tried to get to his feet but stumbled, still dizzy. Eric and Ewan took an arm each and helped him up. Once standing, he found he could keep his balance on his own.

“The good news is that the pressure of the gas blew the door wide open,” Eric said, grinning.

The men rounded the corner again. The door was indeed wide open. Only the twisted bolts that should have secured it shut stopped it from falling flat on the floor. Beyond was more darkness.

“Anything else we should know about before we go any further?” Jake asked, looking around. “No anti-intruder systems that are going to shoot us with poisoned darts or anything?”

“Nope, there’s nothing like that down here. Our biggest challenge now is the dark. With no electricity we’ll have to rely on our torches and their limited battery life,” Ewan said. “So, Russell, if you’d be kind enough to guide us to your top-secret lab, we can take what we came for and get out of here.”

The three men looked at Vardy, waiting for him to take the lead, but he remained motionless.

“Ah,” he said. “About that. The problem is, I don’t actually know precisely where the lab is.”

“What?” The others said in unison.

“But you worked in it, you said so yourself!” Jake exclaimed.

“Well yes, I did. But like I told you, officially it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t appear on any schematics, and there aren’t any signs to it. It’s hidden.”

“Maybe I’m being stupid,” Ewan said, scratching his head, “but how did you go to work if you didn’t know where it was?”

“I was blindfolded. Someone took me down there on Monday mornings. I lived in the lab all week, then they blindfolded me and took me out on Fridays. As I was only on secondment, I didn’t have clearance to go in and out myself.”

“So you’re telling us,” Jake said, his voice raising in pitch, “that we’re looking for a hidden lab inside a secret base, and it could be anywhere inside?”

“That’s right.”

“How big exactly is this base?”

“Fairly sizeable. I believe there are about fifteen kilometres of tunnels in all.”

Jake spun round to face Vardy. “What? Fifteen kilometres? And you have no idea where the lab is? And you didn’t think to mention this before? We could be here a week and never find it!”

“That is entirely possible,” Vardy conceded.

“In a week, everyone will be dead!”

“Yes, that is the most likely scenario.”

“So you’ve brought us here on a wild goose chase. Realistically, we have no chance of finding this machine of yours.”

“Well to be fair,” Vardy said defensively, “we have some chance. A tiny one I will grant you, but some chance is better than none. And what alternative, Captain Noah? Would you rather we all sat on your ship and waited to die?”

Ewan stepped between the two men in a bid to calm frayed tempers. “If I may?” he said quietly. “Instead of wasting time arguing, perhaps we should split up and search for this lab? Vardy, perhaps you can give us some sort of clue about where it might be? There are three levels to the base. Do you, at the very least, have any idea which level it would be on?”

“The lowest,” Vardy said quickly. “They took me down in the lift, and I’ve spent enough time here to know that the time I spent in the lift was long enough to reach level three.”

“Okay, so that’s a good start. We can already discount ten kilometres of tunnels and concentrate our search. Is there anything else that might help?”

“What kind of thing were you working on down there?” Jake asked. “I think we can safely say the official secrets act no longer applies here?”

Vardy hesitated before responding. A lifetime of military service made it difficult to give up classified information, even though he knew Jake was right. “It was a biological warfare lab. You don’t need a huge imagination to work it out. Toxins, mutated viruses, nerve agents, lots of very nasty stuff.”

“Presumably there must have been some kind of air filtration system, keeping the bad things in and letting you breathe clean air?”

“Of course.”

“So if we find and follow the ventilation pipes, maybe we find your lab?”

“The air filtration system covers the whole base. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re underground. You can’t just open a window down here; it’s all filtered and pumped.” Vardy was on edge, upset at being made out to be the villain when really he was only trying to help.

“Why don’t we head down to level three,” Ewan said impatiently. “At least we’ll be doing something instead of standing around here talking. Vardy, maybe you’ll think of something else that might help along the way. Between the three of us, there must be a large proportion of the level we have already visited, places where we know the lab isn’t located. So we’ll concentrate our search on those areas we haven’t been to. Jake, you’ll just have to tag along and keep your eyes open, I guess.”

Jake nodded, and Vardy mumbled his agreement too. Ewan took the lead and disappeared through the door into the blackness of HMS Neptune.

• • •

The engine room of the Spirit of Arcadia was suddenly a hive of activity. While Lucya looked on, five engineers from the Ambush set about their task with true military efficiency. She watched, impressed, as two men located an emergency generator and set up temporary flood lighting. The other three were poring over the control panel with its unsettling warning lights and meter needles which crept ever closer to the red zone. She didn’t want to interrupt their work, but at the same time she had to know if they really were in serious danger.

“Is it bad?” she asked simply.

The lead engineer, a submariner named Gunson, looked up at her with a grave expression. “Not great, not great,” he said. He was a bald man with deep blue-green eyes, like the sea. He wore engineers’ overalls, but unlike the greasy mechanics who worked on the cruiser, his outfit was spotlessly clean.

“Okay, well can you fix it?”

“We have battery systems, but nothing like this. Given enough time, we could find the source of the issue and improvise a solution…” He spoke slowly and deliberately, each word carefully considered before it left his lips. Lucya felt he was leaving something unsaid.