Tunnels 03, Freefall

if any of the virus happened to escape the flames. He'd rather not die like the men in the test cells that Cal had told him about. Perhaps, he reasoned, it would be better to get Martha to build a fire a safe distance away from the shack and burn the phials there -- just in case.
    But he shouldn't overlook what Rebecca had said about delivering Dominion to the right people Topsoil, so derailing any further attempts by the Styx to start a pandemic. In which case, he thought to himself, it would be extremely rash of him to destroy the phials.
    He also realized that it was now imperative that he return to the surface with the deadly cargo as quickly as he could. He didn't know how he was going to manage it, or quite what he'd do when he got there, but he had to try.
    Bartleby yawned. "Why can't my life be more like yours, Bart? Nice and simple," Will said as he scratched the cat's whiskery chin. "Want to swap?"
    The cat nuzzled against his hand and began to purr his rumbling purr. His skeletal tail slowly swiped from side to side, looking for all the world like a malnourished snake performing an act of levitation. "Good boy," Will said, and the cat slid open his saucer-like eyes and regarded him affectionately.
    "So what do I do?" Will posed to the empty room as he dangled the phials in the air, the flames of the fire visible through the clear vessels as if it was actually inside them.
    Bartleby must have thought Will wanted to play with him and flicked out one of his huge forepaws in a kittenish attempt to cuff the dangling phials.
    "Whoa! No!" Will quickly snatched away the phials. "Jesus, that was close!" he spluttered, imagining the tinkle of glass as the phials shattered on the floor and flooded the shack with the deadly pathogen. Bartleby had stopped purring and was eyeing Will with disappointment, clearly put out that his new master was such a killjoy.
    Will immediately went over to the nearest map chest and pulled open the top drawer. "Here it is," he said as he found a small leather tobacco pouch he'd spotted there before. He carefully wrapped the phials in a strip of Hessian and then placed the diminutive bundle in the pouch. "Perfect. That should protect them from any knocks... and cats," he said to Bartleby, as he weighed the pouch in his hand. Then he frowned, falling into thought for a moment. "Chester needs to know about this," he decided, beginning for Elliott's room.
    As Will entered, Chester was wide awake in the chair beside Elliott. He dipped a cloth into a bowl, squeezed the excess water out, then dabbed the girl's forehead.
    "She's badly dehydrated," Chester said. "And look at her. "She's getting so thin. I mean, it's not as if she was very big to start with."
    "Fading away," Will said, repeating the precise words Martha had used to describe what had happened to her son.
    "Yes," Chester nodded. "Maybe what you said was right. Maybe we should just leave and take our chances outside. We'd be all right if we took enough Aniseed Fire with us to see off the spiders. And if it all comes to nothing and we draw a complete blank, maybe Martha will have us back."
    "Doubt it," Will said. "Especially if we nick her blessed plants."
    "Oh, I really don't know what we should do," Chester said through a sigh.
    "Neither do I," Will agreed.
    "Get anything useful from the Styx twin?" Chester asked, changing the subject.
    "Just this," Will replied, taking out the leather pouch and unwrapping the hessian from around the phials.
    Chester blinked in astonishment as he focused on what was there. Dominion? She gave you Dominion? " he said loudly, then screwed up his face. "No. I don't believe it. It's not the real thing."
    "Want to see it?" Will said, extending his hand with the phials over Elliott's still form.
    "Er... no," Chester declined. "I don't want to go anywhere near the damn stuff. And I don't want anything to do with that evil cow." He placed the cloth back into the bowl and wiped his hands on his front before he spoke again. "Do you really believe she's given you the actual virus?"
    "I've got no way of telling. I suppose we could always try it out," Will replied. "You know, one of us act as a guinea pig."
    Chester gave him a quick look, trying to work out if his friend was serious or not.
    "And we could decide which of us it should be with a game of chess," Will said, unable to keep a straight face.
    Chester grinned. "Not likely. You've been practicing way too much. I'd have more of a chance with "Paper,