Read Online The Incredible Melting Man by Phil Smith - Free Book Online

Keeping the astronauts in quarantine all that time with bogus medical reports. Covering up the fact that two of them had died. Pretending that Prometheus Two would be a success. He was sick of being an accomplice to a con trick that pulled the wool over the world’s eyes and pretended that the great American space programme was infallible. It only safe-guarded the jobs of pompous and dangerous idiots like Perry who were prepared to risk lives, more lives than they knew, for their own selfish ends. No, he’d had enough. Let Perry carry on the pretence from now on.
    “Look, Sheriff,” Nelson said stiffly, making sure his voice would carry as far as the General. “If you want to know any more answers I think you’d better have a word with the General.”
    It brought Perry over right away. Nelson introduced them and stood politely and silently aside.
    Blake was still angry and shocked enough about what had happened in his own town to be unintimidated by the military man’s lofty status.
    “What brings you down here on the eve of the launch, General?” he asked bluntly.
    “It’s a security matter, I’m afraid,” replied the General blandly.
    “And are they a security matter?” asked Blake, pointing towards the bodies in the Buick. He made no effort to disguise his anger.
    The General was at a momentary loss. “I suppose you could say so,” he said shakily.
    “Then since I’m in charge of the security of the people of this town and they were two of its citizens, do you mind telling me where I come into your security arrangements?”
    Blake was a good six inches taller than the General and despite his slighter build he towered over him menacingly.
    Again Nelson found himself extracting a perverse delight from the situation, and the General’s discomfiture. Perry was in a genuine dilemma. He couldn’t put the town under martial law until the troops arrived from Hale. At the moment he was the only soldier here. He’d need the sheriff’s co-operation for at least the next hour until they came.
    The General gave Nelson a steady look and drew the sheriff aside. Nelson overheard something about having the situation under control before they disappeared from earshot.
    Ted Nelson stared bleakly at the Buick as he digested this piece of information. The sublime irony was that they’d taken the most exhaustive precautions to sterilise all the machinery and equipment on the Mars mission to avoid any contamination of the planet by earth-born bacteria. But apart from routine medical checks there’d been nothing in their planning to guard against bringing anything back. All that care over a dead planet, and next to nothing for the living. It was monstrous folly.
    His two-way radio interrupted his bitter reflections. It was Dick Loring. Would Nelson come down to the lab as soon as possible; there was something he should see.
    He left a message for the General and got one of the policemen to run him back. He was anxious to be near Judy. She mustn’t be left alone after what had happened.
    The sedative had only been a mild one and Judy had awoken to find the house empty. She was in a state of confusion because of the effects of the drug and had wandered sleepily downstairs.
    She was sitting in the lounge staring vacantly at the window. The curtains were undrawn but the Venetian blinds were half closed, allowing thin bands of light to shine out into the garden. Her eyes followed the light but she saw nothing. She was thinking of Steve.
    He somehow seemed to be the focus of their tragedy. She’d closed her mind to her mother. She knew something awful had happened but she couldn’t bring herself to look at it. Instead it was Steve who occupied her thoughts. Again she knew no details, only that he was desperately ill and that his illness had imperilled the future of the programme.
    She wished she could have gone to him and comforted him, lying alone in an isolation ward fighting for his life. He was a guinea-pig to the rest of