The White Plague

by Frank Herbert

  “One man I know for certain is a priest, he denied it to my face,” Peard said. “Two of them still wearing the collar refused when I told them what we wanted. They don’t trust anyone in authority, Fin.”

  “We’ve been consigned to hell, so they say.”

  “I’ve been trying to find a Father Michael Flannery,” Peard said. “I was told he might…”

  “Flannery’s busy and can’t be reached.”

  “You know where he is?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “Could you get word to him and ask if he…”

  “I’ll do what I can, but you keep looking.”

  Peard sighed. “I’d best be getting down to the corner. The convoy to Killaloe is supposed to leave on time.”

  “They never do.”

  “I’ll not fault them for a delay right now. The darker the night the better, I say.”

  “I was told the N-Seven is safe,” Doheny said.

  Peard shrugged. “I still think we should move the pressure tank and those two here to Dublin.”

  “Not with Kevin O’Donnell right around the corner!”

  “Well, there’s something in what you say, Fin.”

  “Did you send a pistol in to Browder like I told you?”

  “Yes, but he didn’t like it and I thought Kate would make a scene about it.”

  “It’s little enough.”

  “The army’s warned him off, Fin. Depend on it.”

  “Where a madman’s concerned, depend on nothing except the unexpected.” Doheny pushed his chair back and stood. “Myself, I’m going everywhere armed and guarded. I’d advise you to do the same, Adrian.”

  “He’ll not come to Killaloe. They promised.”

  “Sure, and they also promised they could find all the other uncontaminated women and protect them! You’ve heard, haven’t you? Everyone in the Mountmellick mines is dead!”

  “What happened?”

  “One contaminated man. They killed him, of course, but it was too late.”

  “I’ll be getting back to the Lab,” Peard said. “How’re things going here?”

  “Not a glimmer yet, but that’s to be expected. You’ll have the readouts on our lastest findings when you get back to Killaloe. Let me know what you make of them.”

  “I’ll do that. Damn! I wish we could go back and forth to Huddersfield!”

  “Barrier Command won’t allow it. I asked.”

  “I know, but it seems criminal. Who could we contaminate? They’re as full of the plague as we are.”

  “More.”

  “Open research is the only hope the world has,” Peard said.

  “The only hope Ireland has,” Doheny said. “Don’t you forget it. But if the Yankees or the Russkies find the answer first, they’re as likely as not to just wipe us out. All in the sweet name of sterilization, you understand?”

  “Do they accept this at Huddersfield?”

  “Why do y’ think we’re being so open with each other, Adrian? They’re still the British, you know.”

  “And we’re still Irish,” Peard said.

  His slight body was shaken immediately by a high-pitched laugh. Doheny thought it a particularly nasty laugh.

  The right of freedom of speech and press includes not only the right to utter or to print, but the right to distribute, the right to receive, the right to read… and freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach…

  – United States Supreme Court (Griswold v. Connecticut)

  DOCTOR DUDLEY WYCOMBE-FINCH knew what his people thought of this working office he had chosen – much too small for the director of the all-important English Research Establishment, too cluttered and too remote from the centre of things here at Huddersfield.

  In the days when Huddersfield had been devoted to the physical sciences, this had been the basement office of a research assistant. The building above it stood on the perimeter of the fence-enclosed grounds. It was a three-story concrete structure with no ivy and little character. Wycombe-Finch did maintain another office “for state occasions” back in the Administration Building. That was a spacious oaken suite with thick rugs and barriers of administrative assistants in the outer rooms, but this little cubicle and its adjoining lab was where he was to be found most of the time – here in an enclosure of windowless walls covered by bookshelves, its one door leading into the small laboratory. The desk was small enough that he could reach the farthest corner easily with either hand. The one chair was comfortable, high-backed and swiveled. And here he kept his radio and the listening devices and the electronic tools.

  He leaned back in the chair and puffed on his long, thin-stemmed pipe while waiting for the morning call from Doheny. He and Doheny had met on several occasions at international conferences and Wycombe-Finch could picture his Irish counterpart when they spoke on the telephone – a short, rather stout man with a blustery manner. Wycombe-Finch was a contrasting tall, thin, gray-mantled figure. An American colleague once, seeing him with Doheny, had called them Mutt and Jeff, labels that Wycombe-Finch had found offensive.

  A dottle of bitter nicotine burbled out of his pipe stem, burning his tongue. Wycombe-Finch wiped away the offending particles with a white linen handkerchief, which he realized belatedly was one from the bottom of the drawer, one of those his wife, Helen, had laundered before… He veered his mind away from that channel.

  Outside the small office, he knew, the morning was a cold and misty grayness, all distances lost in the drifting diffusion. A Lakes Country morning, they called it locally.

  The telephone in front of him weighted a scattering of papers – reports, summations. He stared at them while he smoked and waited. The telephone link between Ireland and England was none too satisfactory at best and he had learned to be patient in dealing with these regular exchanges between himself and Doheny.

  The telephone buzzed.

  He put the instrument to his ear, laying aside the pipe in an ashtray. “Wycombe-Finch here.”

  Doheny’s distinct tenor was identifiable despite a poor connection that provided static and distinct clicks. Lots of listeners, Wycombe-Finch thought.

  “Ahhh, there you are, Wye. The damnable phone service is at its worst this morning.”

  Wycombe-Finch smiled. He had last met Doheny at a London conference on interdisciplinary cooperation. Jolly fellow and with a first-class scientific mind behind those wide blue eyes. It was only during these regular telephone exchanges, though, that they had formed what Wycombe-Finch thought of as a working friendship.

  Doe and Wye.

  They had fallen into this first-name familiar relationship by the third call.

  “I’m convinced the telephone was created to teach us patience, Doe,” Wycombe-Finch said.

  “Stiff upper lip and all that, eh?” Doheny said. “Well, what’s new, Wye?”

  “We’ve a new government boffin coming down this morning for an assessment of our progress,” Wycombe-Finch said. “I know the chap – Rupert Stonar. No head for science but very alert to wool over the eyes.”

  “Stonar,” Doheny said. “I’ve heard of him. Political.”

  “Oh, very.”

  “What do you have to tell him?”

  “Bloody nothing. Plodding, that’s what we’re doing. Good plodding, the kind that’ll produce in time but no big breakthrough, which is what Stonar and his people want.”

  “What about those four new people you’ve added? The American, Beckett – I hear he’s the one figured out how the Madman spread this thing.”

  “Brilliant fellow, no doubt of it. I’ve kept the four of them together as a team. There’s something about the way they work together. I hesitate to call it electric, but they are one of those happy associations that often produce great things.”

  “Tell that to Stonar.”

  “He already knows it. I was hoping you might produce a little tidbit we could share with him, Doe.”

  After a moment’s silence, Doheny said: “We do
n’t hide very much from you, do we, Wye?”

  Wycombe-Finch recognized this approach, part of a subtle code he and Doheny had worked out between the lines. Doheny had something to reveal, something hot that his masters might resent his telling, but that wouldn’t matter now because Wycombe-Finch obviously already knew it.

  “I hope you don’t even try,” Wycombe-Finch said, picking up on his side. “God knows I resent the use of spies, and I assure you, Doe, that we’re being completely candid with you.”

  Doheny’s laughter rattled in the phone. Wycombe-Finch smiled gently. What in the devil had Doheny come up with?

  “Well,” Doheny said, “it’s true. We may have O’Neill himself.”

  Wycombe-Finch took advantage of a long burst of static to ask sharply: “What? I didn’t hear that.”

  “The Madman. We may have him here.”

  “You have the fellow in durance, interrogators and all that?”

  “God in heaven, no! I’m sending him the long way to our facility at Killaloe. He’s using the name John Garrech O’Donnell. Claims to be a molecular biologist.”

  “How sure are you?” Wycombe-Finch could feel his heart beating rapidly. No telling who might be listening to this conversation. Very dangerous. Doheny had to answer that question correctly.

  “We’re not positive, Wye. But I tell you, he tickles my neck hairs. We’ve one of our best men clinging to him like a leech, a priest ready at hand should he wish to confess, and a poor bereaved young boy in the party so he can see constantly what he’s done.”

  Wycombe-Finch shook his head slowly from side to side. “Doe, you are a bloody awful man. You set this up.”

  “I took advantage of a situation that was handed to us.”

  “You’re still bloody clever, Doe. Conscience, that’ll be the key to the fellow, that is if we’re to believe that profile the Americans produced. My God! This does take a little thinking. I confess I doubted it when our cloak-and-dagger boys told me.”

  “We’re not getting our hopes up too high, but it is something to tell your man Stonar.”

  “He probably already knows. I suggest you be very careful, Doe. O’Neill may have some new nastiness up his sleeve… that is, if it’s the Madman.”

  “Kid gloves, that’s the way we’re doing it.”

  “Terribly muddy waters, Doe.”

  This referred to a joke they had exchanged at a conference, muddy waters being the most fertile for new growth.

  Doheny picked up on it immediately. “Very roiled, indeed. I’ll let you know if they get muddier.”

  “Quite. Are the Americans helping?”

  “We haven’t said anything to them for the obvious reasons, Wye. Earlier, they did send us some material… just in case, but it’s very scanty. No fingerprints, no dental records. They blame the Panic Fire, which may be the actual case.”

  “And if this… O’Donnell, you say? If he’s just what he says he is?”

  “We’re going to give him the mental thumbscrews: a triple approach, all adding up to one thing – he must come up with a brilliant new approach to our researches.”

  “Triple approach? Ahh, you mean in case he’s actually O’Neill and you’re unable to prove it.”

  “Damned right. He could give us a real clue, or try artful concealment or a diversion.”

  “Or actual sabotage.”

  “As good as a confession, that.” A burst of static, painfully loud, intruded on the line. When it passed, Doheny could be heard saying “. . . Beckett’s group is doing.”

  Wycombe-Finch took it as a question. “I think the fellow to watch there is the little frog, Hupp. Got a devious mind. He feeds things to Beckett, almost as though he were playing Beckett, using the man as a personal computer.”

  “Blimey! As you Brits say.”

  “We say nothing of the kind, you Irish potato-eater.”

  Both chuckled. It was a weak enough chiggering, Wycombe-Finch thought, not enough to fool the listeners, but it had become almost ritual between them now, signaling that they were near the end of the conversation.

  “If we ever meet face to face again, I’ll whip your ears with my shillelagh – if I can find one of the blasted things,” Doheny said.

  A tear slid down Wycombe-Finch’s left cheek. The stereotypes had been laid out to be chuckled at, but could they be discarded? Perhaps they played this game to keep the mistakes of the past fresh in their minds – brolly against shillelagh, the ridiculous against the ridiculous. A sigh shook Wycombe-Finch and he thought he heard its echo from Doheny.

  “I’ll fill Stonar with visions of sugarplum faeries from Ireland,” Wycombe-Finch said, “but your man O’Donnell is probably just what he says.”

  “A molecular biologist is a molecular biologist,” Doheny said. “We’d use Jesus, Mary and Joseph themselves if they showed up.”

  “Didn’t O’Donnell carry any identification?” Wycombe-Finch asked, speaking as the thought hit him.

  “A thick-head in command of the party that met him threw away the man’s passport.”

  “Threw it away?”

  “Over his shoulder into the sea. No chance to scrutinize it now and determine if it was a forgery.”

  “Doe, I think sometimes we are the victims of a deliberately malign fate.”

  “Let’s pray there is a balancing benevolent fate. Perhaps it’s Beckett’s team.”

  “By the by, Doe, Beckett and his people think the zipper theory may be confusing us, leading us down the garden path, so to speak.”

  “Interesting. I’ll pass it along.”

  “Sorry I’ve nothing more substantial for you.”

  “Wye, a thought just occurs to me. Why don’t you put Stonar together with Beckett? Brilliant Yank explaining the intricacies of marvelous scientific research to uninformed politician.”

  “Might be interesting,” Wycombe-Finch agreed.

  “It could even spark some new ideas in Beckett,” Doheny said. “Explaining things to the uninitiated sometimes does that.”

  “I’ll give it a think. Beckett, when he gets going, can be quite fluent.”

  “I’d like to talk to Beckett myself. Could he join us for one of these confabs?”

  “I’ll arrange it. Hupp, too?”

  “No… just Beckett. Perhaps Hupp later. And please prime Beckett for heavy interrogation, would you, Wye.”

  “As I say, he is quite fluent, Doe.”

  There was silence filled with static for a moment, then Wycombe-Finch said: “I’ll put together a report on their ideas about the zipper theory. We’ll fax it to you first thing. Might be something in it, although I’m not giving ground.”

  “Beckett needs resistance, eh?”

  “It primes him well. Keep that in mind when you talk.”

  “Does he get angry?”

  “Never shows it, but it’s there.”

  “Fine! Fine! I’ll be at my Yankee-baiting best. And as far as this possible Madman is concerned, I’ll let you know if the waters get muddier.”

  Wycombe-Finch nodded to himself. Totally muddy, of course, would mean they had confirmed the man as O’Neill. He said: “There is one thing more, Doe. Stonar may be coming here to dismiss me.”

  “Tell him to cut the phone lines to us if he does.”

  “Now, Doe, don’t burn any bridges.”

  “I mean it! We Irish don’t take naturally to you Brits. I’ll not waste my time breaking in another contact at Huddersfield. You tell him.”

  “It only took us a week to get on a solid footing.”

  “Nowadays, a week is forever. The politicians haven’t figured that out yet. They need us, we don’t need them.”

  “Oh, I think we do, Doe.”

  “We stand together, Wye, or the whole bloody edifice comes crashing down. You tell that Stonar I said so. Until next time, then?”

  “As you say, Doe.”

  Wycombe-Finch heard the click of the connection being broken. The static stopped. He replaced his telephone
in its cradle and stared at his cold pipe beside it. Well, the listeners had been told.

  Doheny was right in his own way, of course. Scientists had created this awful mess. Contributed to it, anyway, and no denying that. Bad communication, bad liaison with governments, failure to exercise what power we had or even to recognize the real nature of power. When we did move, we played the same old political games.

  He glanced up at the wall of books on his left without really seeing them. What if it was Madman O’Neill over there in Ireland? Should there prove to be a way of using him, Doheny was sly enough to find it. But God help us all if the wrong people learned about it on the Outside.

  Wycombe-Finch shook his head. Good thing the man was in Doheny’s hands. He picked up his pipe and relighted it, thinking about this. Not until this moment had he realized how much faith he had developed in Doheny’s crafty ways.

  If there is one principle clearer than any other it is this: that in any business, whether of government or mere merchandising, somebody must be trusted.

  – Woodrow Wilson

  All this time with the damned Yank and not a clue! Herity thought.

  It was midafternoon and they were plodding upward out of another shallow valley, the boy and the priest walking a bit ahead. The boy had been even more withdrawn since the fight in the bath house, his silence a deeper thing. Father Michael was accusatory. It was all Herity’s fault.

  It’s all that damned Yank’s fault!

  And the priest isn’t helping.

  A Yank did it to us – made a ghetto of Ireland.

  Herity had never thought of himself as a super-patriot – only a typical Irishman, bitter over the centuries of British oppression. He felt a tribal loyalty to his people and the land, a kinship of the rath. There was a pulling force in the Irish earth, he thought. It was a memory that lived in the soil itself. It remembered and always had. Even if there were no more people, there would be something here, an essence that would tell how the Gaels had passed this way once.

  Father Michael was talking to the Yank, not probing, not doing what he should to see if it was a mask the man wore and the Madman himself underneath. Black thoughts in his mind, Herity listened.