The doctor and nurse lay the lifeless bag of infected organs back onto the cot.

Colonel Ruetenik stands over the bleeding corpse and coldly continues his examination. “Subject appears to have suffered a massive crash and bleed out. Marvin, bring the hatbox over here. I want several vials of this black excrement as well as tissue and organ samples.”

It is taking all of Ennis Chaney’s willpower to keep himself from puking within his headpiece. His legs are shaking noticeably as he watches Marvin Teperman kneel next to the dead man and fill several small containers with contaminated blood. Each sample is placed carefully into the hatbox, a cylindrical biohazard container made of waxed cardboard.

Chaney is sweating profusely. He feels as if he is suffocating within the protective suit.

The four men leave the nurse to clean up.

The colonel pulls Chaney aside. “Sir, Marvin will fly back to Washington with you to complete an analysis of these samples. I’d prefer to stick around here a while longer. If you could arrange—”

“Diego!” The nurse stumbles out of the isolation tent, screaming in Spanish. Dr. Juarez grabs her by the wrists.

“Icarajo!” Juarez stares at the small tear along the left elbow of her protective suit. The skin along the exposed arm is sizzling, a blotch of black vomit the size of a quarter already burning through most of the flesh down to the bone.

Colonel Ruetenik douses her arm with the green disinfectant.

“Stay calm, Isabel, I think we caught it in time.” Dr. Juarez looks back at the Vice President, desperation on his face, tears in his eyes. “My wife—”

Chaney feels a lump growing in his throat as he stares into the terrified eyes of the condemned woman.

“Diego, cut off my arm!”

“Isa—”

“Diego, the baby will become infected!”

Chaney stays long enough to watch Juarez and Reutenik carry the shrieking woman into surgery. Then he runs from the tent, tearing at his headpiece as he stumbles across a sand dune. He falls to his knees, groping for the zipper along the neckline of his hood as the bile rises from his throat.

“NO!” Marvin grabs Chaney’s wrist just as he is about to remove the headpiece. The exobiologist douses the vice president’s orange suit with green disinfectant as Ennis vomits across the inside of his face plate.

Marvin waits until he is finished, then takes him by the arm and leads him to the chemical showers. The two men remain in their Racal suits beneath the spray of disinfectant, then move to a second shower of water where they strip off their suits.

Chaney tosses his soiled shirt in a plastic bag. He washes his face and neck, then sits down on a plastic bench, feeling weak and vulnerable.

“Are you all right?”

“Shit, I’m a far cry from being all right.” He shakes his head. “I lost control back there.”