The Wells of Hell Read Free Page B

meticulous
worker, and I knew that it was going to be three or four hours before he’d
completed his analysis. As the electric clock on the laboratory wall crept past
seven, my initial enthusiasm began to pall, and I began to feel bored and
hungry, and very much in need of a beer. It was so dark outside now that I
could see my weary reflection, sitting on a laboratory stool with my chin in my
hand. Rheta had almost finished tidying up the rows of test tubes and pipettes
and assorted laboratory junk, and I guessed she was getting ready to quit for
the day.
    ‘Is this really a job for a girl like
you?’ I asked her, as she put away her Bunsen burner hose. ‘Why didn’t you take
up something interesting, like go-go dancing? Or you could have been a Playboy
bunny with your looks.’
    ‘Believe me,’ said Rheta, closing
the cupboard door, ‘analysing swine fever samples is a hell of a lot more
interesting than serving cocktails to lecherous people like you.’
    ‘Who’s lecherous? Just because I
have this mental picture of you in one of those tight satin outfits, with a cotton puff on your backside, that doesn’t mean anything.
Anyway, how about dinner tonight ?1
    ‘How about dinner tonight?’ she
asked, unbuttoning her lab coat.
    ‘I shrugged. ‘We could do anything
you like. We could go up to Gaylordsville and have bluefish and white wine at
the Fritz & Fox. Or we could go to Conn’s Dairy Bar and have milk shakes
and hamburgers.’
    ‘You really know how to live, don’t
you?’ she asked me, with good-humoured sarcasm. ‘Well, thanks, but no thanks. I
have a date with Kenny Packer at nine.’
    ‘Kenny Packer the football player? Pigskin Packer?’
    ‘That’s him.’
    ‘He’s like the Incredible Hulk, only
pink.’ - Dan said: ‘Hold on a minute, you two,’ and without taking his eyes
away from his microscope, he beckoned us over. ‘Come and take a look at this.’
    We came over, and Dan shifted his stool
back so that we could take a look into the binocular lenses. I took a squint
first, and all I could see was blurry shapes swimming
around in a sea of dazzling light. But then Rheta took her turn, and she spent
two or three minutes frowning at the slide in silence, occasionally adjusting
the focus or moving the slide from side to side.
    Eventually, she stood straight, and
looked at Dan with a questioning, concerned expression. Dan looked back at her,
and shook his head like he didn’t know what to say, or what to do.
    I said, impatiently: ‘Do you mind
letting me in on this? All I saw were curly little squiggles.’
    Dan nodded. ‘There are always curly
little squiggles, even in the clearest water. Micro-organisms
which filtration and purification never remove. They’re quite harmless,
on the whole. You drink millions of them every day.’
    ‘What are you trying to do?’ I asked
him. ‘Put me off dinner?’
    ‘Not at all. But those things you can see in
this particular sample of water ought to put the Bodines off their dinner.’
    ‘What are they? Anything
serious?’
    Dan smoothed the palm of his hand
over his bald head. ‘It’s hard to say. From a cursory look at them, they appear
to be nothing more than unusually-developed microscopic organisms. But when you
look at them more closely you can see that they’re much more sophisticated than
the usual run-of-the-mill organisms and microbes you find in water Supplies.
They seem to have a rudimentary respiratory system, and they also seem to be
exuding some kind of substance which is mingling with the water.’
    I sat astride one of the stools. ‘Is
that what’s making the water discoloured?’
    ‘I would guess so. Yes, it almost
certainly is.’
    ‘So what are these things? You ever seen them before?’ I asked him.
    Dan glanced at Rheta. ‘Have you?’ he
asked her. She shook her head, and said nothing.
    Dan said: ‘They’re not in any way
familiar to me, either.
    They’re not the kind of bug you’d
normally expect to find in water,