The White Plague

by Frank Herbert

  Beckett had been warned that escort instructions were to shoot down the Lear if it deviated from a five-mile-wide corridor.

  The fuel-conserving flight time had been estimated at about thirteen hours, putting them at Manchester, England, about 6:30 A.M. local. Barrier Command rockets were scheduled to smash into the Lear six minutes after Beckett parked it at the end of the Manchester strip. Before landing, Beckett’s instructions were to dump any excess fuel, using a switch system that automatically transmitted a confirmation signal to Barrier Command.

  “Otherwise you will be strafed while ground personnel are still in and around the aircraft,” the briefing colonel had warned.

  They were taking no chances that someone on the ground would attempt to hijack the Lear and leave England.

  As Beckett was finishing the cockpit check, Hupp moved forward and slipped into the right-hand seat. “Do you mind, Bill?”

  “Just don’t touch anything.”

  Beckett scanned the instruments. He was glad to see the latest satellite-relay navigation screen on the panel. There was a note from the installers giving him a list of the critical deviations. There had been no time to fine-tune the thing.

  As the booster truck moved into position, its operator wearing a spacesuit and breathing through tanks on the truck, Beckett went through the procedures automatically while his mind read him the flight numbers: four hours fifty-seven minutes Colorado Springs to Boston; thirteen hours thirty-three minutes elapsed time to Manchester – twenty-nine minutes behind the original schedule. Headwinds over the Atlantic. They should be over Boston about 5:30 P.M. And they should have two pilots in this cockpit! He glanced speculatively at Hupp beside him and decided against delegating some of the takeoff routine. Hupp was obviously nervous.

  Beckett turned back to his instruments and controls, reminding himself that this plane had to be flown Lear-fashion. This was a demanding aircraft susceptible to pilot-induced lateral oscillation. He had to be on his toes at every minute during takeoff and landing to avoid a Dutch roll, a half snap that could whip them into the ground. He had to fly it by the numbers.

  His earphones told him: “Taxi to runway thirty-five, Mister Beckett. Your gross weight figures at 12,439 pounds.”

  Beckett made a note of this and responded: “Goodbye, Peterson Field.”

  “Good flight, Major.”

  Beckett recognized the voice of the briefing colonel up there in the tower. Strange that the man had never provided a name. Lots of odd things in this new world.

  “Activate your special transmitter,” the colonel ordered.

  Beckett flipped a red switch on his panel.

  “What’s that?” Hupp asked.

  “Our leper’s bell.” Beckett glanced left and right. “Now, shut up until I get us straight and level topside.”

  As the Lear gathered speed down the runway, Beckett saw the flamethrower tanks already speeding in to the parking position. Their car, which had been left at the taxi ramp, would get it first, then the entire area would be washed in flame. Fire carried a sense of cleansing finality, Beckett thought. Burned things tended not to reproduce.

  The Mirage III escort, four aircraft, was with him before he reached the Thurman Intersection outside Denver. He waved at the flanking pilots rather than tip his wings. The pilots gave him a thumbs-up before dropping back. One took up station directly behind. Beckett nodded to himself. He had seen the armed rockets under the swept wings. Those rockets were an important reality on this flight. They required some tight navigation from Bill Beckett.

  The radio interrupted his thoughts with a weather check. Headwinds eased back slightly over the Atlantic but nothing to cheer about.

  Beckett heard it out, then thumbed his mike for intercom and said: “Keep your seatbelts fastened when you’re not in the toilet. No unnecessary moving around. We have uncertain weather off the coast and I’ll have to nurse this bird all the way. We need every ounce of fuel.”

  At thirty-five thousand feet, he leveled off and trimmed, announced his position, then turned to Hupp. “We may not have a pisscup of fuel left when we get there.”

  “I have confidence in you, Bill. Tell me, what is the leper’s bell?”

  “We transmit a constant special ID. If it goes silent, whammo!” He glanced out at a Mirage III that had taken up position on the right. “Your buddies out there mean business.”

  “I see the rockets. They would use them.”

  “You better believe it, Joe.”

  “You don’t mind if I ride up here with you?”

  “Glad of the company when I’m not busy. Just keep your feet off those pedals and don’t touch the wheel.”

  “I hear and obey, Mon Capitaine.”

  “Very good,” Beckett said, grinning and relaxing for the first time since he had climbed into the plane. “Just keep the Foreign Legion in mind and remember how a capitaine punishes disobedience.”

  “Stretched out in the hot sun for the Berbers,” Hupp said. “The vultures waiting. Yes, I have seen that movie.”

  Beckett thumbed his microphone for a position check from ground stations, then: “Have you thought what this little trip is costing? This plane with modifications and all, I’d guess close to four million. One trip and bam! This may be the costliest trans-Atlantic flight in history.”

  “But first class,” Hupp said. “Except in the back. You can hear the fuel moving in those tanks.”

  “That bothers you?”

  “I do not like fire.”

  “You’d never feel it. Someone once said an airplane is one of the better ways to go. It may kill you but it won’t hurt you.”

  Hupp shuddered. “I once steered the airplane of a friend near Lyon. I did not like the feeling.”

  “Some do; some don’t. What were you and Sergei and Francois buzzing about back there before we took off?”

  For answer, Hupp said: “You have children, Bill?”

  “Huh? Yeah. Marge and I have two daughters.” He crossed his fingers. “And they’re still safe, thank God. What’s that have to do with…”

  “I have two boys. They are with my family near Bergerac in the Dordogne.”

  “Are you changing the subject, Joe?”

  “Not at all. I like the Bergerac region.”

  “Cyrano’s hometown,” Beckett said, deciding to go along with this strange turn in the conversation. “How come you don’t have a big nose?”

  “I was never asked to hunt truffles as a child.”

  Beckett emitted a barking laugh, feeling it relieve his tensions. Was that Hupp’s motive, ease things?

  “We are a good team, Bill,” Hupp said.

  “One helluva team! Even old Sergei back there.”

  “Ahhh, poor Sergei. He has convinced himself that he and Ariane would have experienced the grand passion. Death has thwarted the great love story of the age.”

  “Was that what you were talking about?”

  “Only in passing. It is a strange thing about our group. We are fitted to each other in a most remarkable fashion – almost as though fate had designed us to work together on this thing.”

  “We’re going to lick it, Joe.”

  “I agree. Those two tragic deaths have motivated us in a very powerful way. And the information from the autopsies – my head is buzzing with it. If the liver…”

  “What’s it like in the Dordogne?” Beckett interrupted.

  Hupp glanced at him, remembering the other Beckett under the hot lights of the OR, the deft and certain movements of his scalpel. Yes, this Beckett here in the aircraft was the one who had cursed Francois.

  “Every fall in the Dordogne, we hunt the cèpe mushroom, the boletus edulis,” Hupp said. He touched his fingertips to his lips and blew a kiss. “Bill, when we have triumphed over this plague, you must bring your family. We will have a party – cèpe and strawberries – the little fraise des bois.”

  “That’s a deal.”

  Beckett paused to make a course correction. Th
e land below him was a patchwork of rectangular farms glimpsed through a partial cloud cover. The Lear felt smooth and steady.

  “We are very old-fashioned in the Dordogne,” Hupp said. “In France we are thought of much the way your people think of the hillbillies. My marriage to Yvonne was arranged. We had known each other since childhood, of course.”

  “No hanky-panky beforehand?”

  “In spite of all the stories, we French do not kiss and tell. My lips are sealed.”

  “An arranged marriage? I thought that went out with tin pants and matching jacket.”

  Hupp looked puzzled. “Tin pants and… Oh, you mean armor.” He shrugged. “How old are your daughters, Bill?”

  “Eight and eleven. Why? You thinking of arranging marriages for them?”

  “My sons are fourteen and twelve. Not a bad difference in the ages.”

  Beckett stared at him. “You serious?”

  “Bill, have you thought of the kind of world we will enter when we have beaten this plague?”

  “A little, yeah.”

  “It is not good that our team must communicate with the other investigators through the political leaders of our nations.”

  “They’re all looking for an advantage.”

  “The very thing Sergei said. But things are changing. I am serious about our children, Bill. Why shouldn’t the intelligent marry their children to children of the intelligent?”

  “You know it doesn’t work that way, Joe. The offspring wouldn’t necessarily…”

  “I know the genetic rule, Bill. Deviation to the center. Our grandchildren would tend to be not quite as smart as their parents… perhaps.”

  “What’s on your mind, Joe?”

  “The very different world our children will inherit. The pattern is already making itself evident. Small local governments with strong borders. Switzerlands everywhere. Suspicion of strangers.”

  “With good reason!”

  “Granted, but consider the consequences if the big governments vanish.”

  “You really think they’re on the way out?”

  “It’s obvious. Of what use is a big government when a single individual can destroy it? Governments will have to be small enough that you know every one of your neighbors.”

  “Good God!” Beckett took a deep, trembling breath.

  “We may achieve a single worldwide currency,” Hupp said. “Perhaps an electronic currency. There will still be some trade, I think. But who would dare attack his neighbor when one survivor could exterminate the attackers?”

  “Yes, but if we can cure…”

  “The variations on this plague are infinite, Bill. That’s already plain.”

  “There’ll still be armies,” Beckett said, his tone cynical.

  “Who would dare maintain a military force when the possession of such a force is an invitation to disaster, keeping your populace in constant peril?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your military force cannot practice its arts upon its neighbors. The old weapons are outmoded.”

  Beckett took his attention off the Lear’s course and stared at Hupp. “Jesus Christ!” he whispered.

  “We have opened Pandora’s Box,” Hupp said. “This plague is just the first, I fear. Think about it a moment, Bill – the variations on this plague…”

  “One man alone did it,” Beckett said, nodding.

  He glanced out at the Mirage III beyond his left wingtip, then back to Hupp. “A police state could…”

  “Sergei thinks not. He has been thinking very hard about this matter. He even suspects his masters have a plan to kill off some scientists once they have…”

  “What if they miss the wrong one?”

  “Yes. What if there is another plague, a mutation? And they have no resources with which to meet this threat? Or what are your neighbors doing with their scientists? Oh, no! This tiger has a long tail.”

  Beckett put the Lear on autopilot and announced this to their escort. He leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head.

  “The airplane flies itself?” Hupp asked, a touch of fear in his voice.

  “It flies itself.”

  “English has this valuable reflexive form,” Hupp said. “My thought is expressed better in English – that we ourselves created this Madman. We have done this thing to ourselves. We are both action and object.”

  “You’ve been thinking about this for some time,” Beckett said.

  “I think I know what kind of world our children will inherit.”

  “I only hope they’ll inherit any kind of world.”

  “That is the first order of business, yes.”

  Beckett glanced sideways at Hupp. “You were serious about marrying your sons to my daughters.”

  “I am serious. We will find a need to arrange marriages across the new borders. Exogamy is not a new device, Bill.”

  “Yeah, we’ll have to keep expanding the gene pool.”

  “Or suffer genetic deterioration.”

  Beckett lowered his hands and scanned the instruments. He made a course correction. Presently, he said: “We not only need a cure for the plague, we need a medical technique for dealing with the general problem.”

  “Medical?” Hupp asked. “Only medical?”

  “I see what you mean, Joe. Public medicine has always had its political hurdles, but this one…”

  “We think there should be strategically placed centers around the world, tight communications links, a complete computer interchange without regard to national boundaries, voice and video, no censorship. Scientists should join hands with no regard to nationality.”

  “You’re dreaming, Joe.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Our families are hostage to our good behavior, dammit!”

  “And the rest of our world is hostage to its good behavior.”

  “What if some research establishment in the Soviet Union solves it before we do?”

  “It makes little difference as long as many of us know the solution.”

  “Christ! You’re talking about a conspiracy of scientists!”

  “Exactly. And any researcher who thinks this thing through will come to our conclusions.”

  “You really think so? Why?”

  “Because there’s enormous power in it… and anything else is chaos.”

  “Sergei goes along with this?”

  “Sergei has a fine appreciation for personal power. And he has friends in strategic places within the Soviet Union.”

  “He agrees to plot against his bosses?”

  “He suggests we call it among ourselves the ‘Foss-Godelinsky Cabal.’ “ Hupp cleared his throat. “Your friend Ruckerman…”

  “He’s in Washington and I’m here.”

  “But if the opportunity arose?”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Think long and hard, Bill. Think about all the good things that could be done with this knowledge. Think of the value in such knowledge.”

  Beckett stared at him. “You surprise me, Joe.”

  “I surprise myself, but I think this is a logical answer to giving our children a world they will want to inherit.”

  “Francois, what does he say about it?”

  “You value his opinion?”

  “On this sort of thing, yes.”

  “In a way, you’re alike, you and Francois. You are conservatives. It is that which convinced Francois. He wishes to conserve certain values in our world.”

  “Well, the politicians have sure as hell made a mess of it.”

  “Francois said something similar, but then he has not admired a politician since de Gaulle.”

  “Another general,” Beckett said.

  “Like Eisenhower?”

  “Touché.”

  “Then you will think about this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Where is the autopsy summation? I saw you with it before we left the DIC.”

  “It’s in my flight bag right b
ehind me.” Beckett gestured with his elbow. “Right on top. It’s open.”

  Hupp leaned across the console and slipped a sheaf of papers from the bag behind Beckett’s seat. As he did so, he glanced back into the aircraft.

  “Sergei and Francois are asleep,” he said. Hupp straightened and flattened the papers on his lap.

  “Best thing they could do,” Beckett said. He pulled up a sectional chart and took an RDF bearing for his position.

  “Where are we?” Hupp asked. He looked down, seeing cloud cover bright in the sunlight.

  “We’ll be crossing Mansfield, Ohio, pretty soon. We have to head north there to miss Pittsburgh.”

  Hupp looked at the autopsy report in his lap. “Is it true, Bill,” he asked, “that you cried when Ariane died?”

  “Is that what Francois said?”

  “He said you cursed him and you cried, and he said it was an admirable thing in you. The passing of a friend should not go unremarked.”

  “That lady had balls,” Beckett muttered.

  If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am for myself alone, who am I?

  – Hillel

  HULS ANDERS BERGEN turned off all of his office lights and strode to the window, knowing the way even in darkness. New York street lights from the United Nations Plaza far below filled the foggy night with a faint glow, an underlighted silvery movement, vaporous and mysterious. Although he knew the temperature had not changed in the office, he felt suddenly cold.

  For more than an hour he had been going over and over in his mind that afternoon’s press conference. The well-known Kissinger admonition was much in his thoughts:

  “It is a mistake to assume everything said in a press conference is fully considered.”

  But all of his staff had agreed that something had to be said to the reporters. He had chosen to make it a background briefing, something they could credit to “a high official of the United Nations.”

  Too many delicate unknowns complicated the world scene. There was too much secrecy. He had chosen to part the veils slightly.

  There had been the preliminary report of the archaeologists who had been called in to sift the ashes of the burned-out house in Seattle. There was a touch of brilliance in that decision, he thought. Archaeologists! Brave men. They had known they could not return to their families.