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Suddenly a voice shouted The light showed a figure leaning through the upper hatch, his hands grabbing Dover and pulling hih into the aft hold Pitt instinctively kneas Giordino

The burly little Italian had a keen sense of arriving at the right place at the right moment

Then Pitt was at the top and crawling into the hold containing the nerve agent The hatch cover was still intact, because the sloping ground above was not as dense near the stern section When he reached the botto Dover toward the after deckhouse and teripped Pitts arm

"We took casualties during the quake," he said grimly

"How bad?" Asked Pitt

"Four injured, mostly broken bones, and one dead"

Giordino hesitated and Pitt knew

"Mendoza?"

"One of the drus," Giordino explained, his voice more solemn than Pitt had ever known it "She suffered a compound fracture A bone splinter pierced her suit" His words died

"The nerve agent leaked onto her skin," Pitt finished, a sense of helplessness and shock flooding through him

Giordino nodded "We carried her outside"

Pitt found Julie Mendoza lying on the Pilottown's stern deck

Overhead a great cloud of volcanic ash rose into a blue sky and fortuitously drifted to the northward and away from the ship

She lay alone and off to one side The uninjured people were attending to the living Only the young officer from the Catawba stood beside her, and his entire body was arching convulsively as he was being violently sick into his air filter

Someone had relinted orange under the setting sun Her eyes were open and staring into nothingness, the jaw jutting and rigid in whatas it dried in sun-tinted copper rivers that had gushed fro es of her eyes What little facial skin still shoas already turning a bluish black