Cold Fusion - Lance Parkin [43]
The body was lying on its back. It didn’t appear to be breathing. The veins that stuck out on the cadaver’s neck and arms were no longer pulsing. Adric felt compelled to get a closer look at the corpse, and leant over. He hesitated before he touched the withered skin. Although it had just been suspended in cryogenic fluid, the body was dry as an autumn leaf. Adric found it hard to believe that such a stunted, desiccated thing could ever have been alive. He swallowed, and found to his surprise that he was fighting back tears.
The door slid open. Adric spun around to see three Adjudicators marching into the room, their blasters raised.
The Doctor had stopped screaming, but only because his mouth had dried out. He continued to moan hoarsely.
‘Stand away!’ one of the armoured figures ordered. They were keeping their distance from the corpse. Adric wondered for the first time whether it was in quarantine.
Adric turned back to the Patient. A chink of light had appeared on its neck. Adric leant forward, fascinated.
‘Get back!’
‘Look,’ Adric insisted.
Cracks were appearing all along the body. The one at the neck had surged along the Patient’s torso, finally running out of momentum at the hip. Another shot down from the fingertips to the elbow. Tiny slits began appearing all across the face, spidery lines were criss-crossing the Patient’s skin. Within moments, the Patient’s body looked as if it was made from shattered panes of brown glass. It was beginning to crumble away into nothing.
A gloved hand clamped on Adric’s shoulder. ‘You were ordered to stand away!’ an electronic voice warned. Adric refused to budge. Rather than pulling him back, the Adjudicator faltered, mesmerized by what he saw.
The cracks were glowing now, the rough skin was melting into wax. The skin was bubbling, flowing. As they watched, light began pouring out of the Patient’s body, radiating around the room. A couple of the Adjudicators were looking up, watching the beams of light dancing across the ceiling. Adric’s attention was focused on the Patient. A new body was beginning to appear, bathed in the brilliant light. Withered limbs were growing longer and more supple, hair was sprouting from the scalp. The skin was lightening and becoming baby-smooth. The rate of change was building to a crescendo: the entire body was rippling with frantic activity as though water was streaming over it.
Adric had seen this happen once before.
A new face was appearing, fading up into view, a new set of features superimposed over the old.
There was a final burst of light, and then the room was dark once more.
The metamorphosis was complete.
The Patient’s eyes snapped open. They were a piercing blue. The gnarled face had been replaced by high cheekbones and full red lips. Long blonde hair cascaded down slender shoulders, and over a delicately curved chest, but left a flat stomach and long legs exposed.
‘It’s a woman,’ Adric whispered redundantly. She had propped herself up on her elbows, wincing. Adric moved to help, but one of the Adjudicators, the officer in charge of the small group, yanked him back. The woman clasped her forehead. She was clearly in great pain.
‘Get a doctor in here,’ the Adjudicator-Lieutenant ordered, ‘and seal off this floor.’ He unhooked his cloak and draped it over the young woman’s shoulders to preserve her modesty. She was unselfconscious, unaware she had been naked, but accepted the cloak gratefully. She rubbed the material between her fingers, and peered at it with curiosity.
The medical team arrived, an Adjudicator paramedic and a couple of Scientifica physicians. They began unclipping medical scanners from their belts and readying auto-syringes.
‘Where’s the Patient?’ Medford was here now as well, anxiously examining the remains of cryotube.