The White Plague

by Frank Herbert

  “Then I’ll have to turn you over to Kevin for immediate disposal. We’ve plenty of lab technicians. What we need is inspiration and hope.”

  “And what happens if I don’t…”

  “If you fail? Ahhh, then that’s the end of you right there. We’re not very tolerant of failure, we aren’t.”

  “You mean you just kill off…”

  “Oh, no! Nothing so bloody or simple. But Kevin has a short temper and a quick gun.”

  “Then I’ll have to hide my mistakes.”

  “Not from me, you won’t!” Doheny pushed himself away from his desk. “We’ll be sending you along to Peard at Killaloe. I suggest you work out your sensational new approach to the plague before you arrive.”

  John’s gaze followed Doheny as the man arose. “Do or die?”

  “Isn’t that the nature of our problem?” Doheny asked.

  John forced his gaze away from Doheny. The way the man stood there, accusing!

  “You see, John,” Doheny said, “there’s new pressure from the plague. The thing is mutating. It’s into the mammals of the sea: the whales, the porpoises, the seals and such. No stopping the spread of it now.”

  John knew his face was a frozen mask. Mutation! There was something he had not considered. It had gotten out of hand. The thing was a wildfire.

  “If you’ll just wait here,” Doheny said, “I’ll go and lay on your travel arrangements.”

  He let himself out into the hall. Kevin already was there, emerging from the adjoining office.

  “You’re a fool, Doheny!” Kevin whispered. “What if he tries to destroy our work at Killaloe?”

  “Then you’ll have to kill him,” Doheny said. “Have they sent the fingerprints and dental charts, yet?”

  “They’re playing it cautious! Why do we want them? Do we have a suspect? Why else do they think we’d ask?”

  “It was dangerous to ask, Kevin.”

  “It’s dangerous to live!”

  “Kevin… if that’s O’Neill in there and if I’ve motivated him correctly, he’ll solve the thing for us.”

  “You as much as told him it couldn’t be cured!”

  “That surprised him, you know. He was shocked. Never thought about it before. Typical researcher. Eyes on the goal.”

  “And what if you’re right?” Kevin asked. “What if it’s O’Neill and he fails?”

  “Then hope is dead for sure.”

  A doctor says: “Sir, it would be better to die according to the rules than to live in contradiction to the Faculty of Medicine.”

  – Moliere, speaking to a patient who recovered with unorthodox treatment

  WILLIAM RUCKERMAN’S first meeting with his pilot was on the field at Hagerstown, Maryland. Dawn opened a thin crack of light along the eastern horizon. It was cold, it was misty wet and Ruckerman was nursing a nervous stomach. He had been staying in a military-run hotel near the field for two days before Weather said it was safe to make the trans-Atlantic flight. The two days had been a sniffly, headachy period in which he had experienced the growing certainty that he was suffering the benign symptoms of the plague, realizing with an empty feeling that he was now a carrier.

  Someone from the Washington power elite had to do this, though, the long-term stakes being what they were. Beckett’s little cabal had really nailed down the potential but they were crazy if they thought they could control it by themselves.

  Cranmore McCrae, the pilot, turned out to be a short and rather stout young man with an oversized head – a head so large that Ruckerman decided it must be the result of hormone imbalances. McCrae, standing just inside the plane, appeared deformed: small blue eyes set widely apart over a flat nose, long mouth with thick lips and blocky jaw which moved on a hinge far back against his neck.

  The plane was a small twin jet of a model Ruckerman did not recognize. It looked like an expensive executive aircraft – sleek and fast with its nose jutting far out over the front gear. The door folded down to become stairs.

  The sergeant who had driven Ruckerman to the field stood at the foot of the stairs, damp wind whipping his coat, until McCrae closed the door and sealed it. McCrae strapped Ruckerman’s bag into an empty seat, then led the way forward, beginning the oddest interrogation Ruckerman had ever experienced.

  “Tell me, Doctor Ruckerman,” McCrae asked, “is there any reason Charlie Turkwood might want you dead?”

  Ruckerman, who was seating himself in the right-hand side of the cockpit and beginning to fasten his seatbelt, stopped and stared at McCrae. What a strange question. Ruckerman wondered if he had heard it correctly.

  “Fasten your seatbelt there,” McCrae said. “We’re getting the hell outa here.”

  “Are you suggesting Charlie Turkwood might want me dead?” Ruckerman asked, clipping the lock of his seatbelt.

  “That’s the general idea.” McCrae donned a headset and adjusted a microphone close to his lips. He thumbed a switch on the control wheel.

  “This is Rover Boy,” he said. “Ready to taxi.”

  “Clear to taxi, Rover Boy.” The metallic voice from the tower came from an overhead speaker. Ruckerman looked up at the grille.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. And he wondered what Jim Saddler had gotten him into – people wanting him dead! He mused on this as McCrae cleared for the runway, taxied into position and aimed the aircraft down the long field.

  McCrae looked at him then. “I sure hope you’re right.”

  He pushed the throttles to the firewall. The plane gathered speed, slowly at first, then pressing Ruckerman back into the cushions. Lift-off was smooth, followed by rapid climb out over the low overcast. Ruckerman blinked in the bright sunlight reflected off a fleecy ocean of clouds.

  “About six and a half hours estimated flying time,” McCrae said.

  “Why the devil did you ask that question about Turkwood?” Ruckerman demanded.

  “I was a CIA pilot and I still have a few friends around who tell me things. Can I call you Will? I hear that’s what your friends call you.”

  Ruckerman spoke stiffly: “Call me whatever you like, just so long as you explain this, this…”

  “Well, Will, my friends say Turky is bad news. I’ve been nosing around, you know? Trying to find out if there might be some jokers in this deck… some other reason for our little trip.”

  “What other reason could there possibly be?” Ruckerman looked out at the cloud cover, a changing landscape without any safe referents. He wondered if they had assigned him a mad pilot.

  “You really think the Irish have that Madman O’Neill?” McCrae asked. “They want me to look into that after I drop you off.”

  “I’m sure I couldn’t say,” Ruckerman said.

  “I know that sergeant who drove you out to the field,” McCrae said. “An odd-job man. What’d you two talk about during the drive?”

  “He wondered who had arranged for me to do this. I… I told him I thought it originated with the President himself.”

  “Christ on a crutch!” McCrae said.

  “Will you tell me what this is all about?”

  “Look, Will,” McCrae said, “we’re at thirty-two thousand right now and things look pretty smooth here. I’m going to put this bird on automatic while I go back and have a look around. You just sit tight and don’t touch anything. Sing out if you see any other planes. Okay?”

  “Look around? For what?”

  “I’d feel a lot better about this flight if I was sure we weren’t packing something that’ll go boom.”

  “A bomb?” Ruckerman felt a tight sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  McCrae had unbuckled his harness and slipped out of it. He stood bent over, looking back at Ruckerman.

  “It could be just my native caution.” He turned away and left the compartment but his voice was still audible to Ruckerman. “Damn! I should’ve demanded to make my own inspection of this bird!”

  Ruckerman turned and looked out the windscreen.
Their flight path was taking them diagonally across a deep chasm in the clouds, a gray glimpse of ocean through the screening mists far below.

  This was insane. This whole trip did not ring true, suddenly. He was tempted to tell McCrae to turn back. But would McCrae obey him? And even if McCrae agreed, would they be allowed to return?

  “This is a one-way trip until we find the cure,” Saddler had said.

  Ruckerman thought of the deep banks of antiaircraft missiles around Washington. One MUSAM with its multi-headed heat-and-motion-seekers…

  McCrae slipped back into his seat and buckled his harness. “I can’t find a damn thing.” He checked his instruments and looked then at Ruckerman. “How’d they rope you into this?”

  “I was the obvious choice.”

  “Yeah? For what?”

  “I have the confidence of the President and his chief advisors. I have the scientific background to, well, assess… things.”

  “My friends say you may be a patsy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a lot of hate going around against science and scientists. How’d you get contaminated, anyway?”

  Ruckerman swallowed. This was the tricky part. “I… it was a stupid thing. I went through a wrong door at one of the quarantine stations. They should not have left that door unlocked!”

  “And maybe you should’ve been more careful.”

  Ruckerman searched in his mind for a way to divert the conversation, then: “How were you chosen as my pilot?”

  “I volunteered.”

  “Why?”

  “I have an uncle in Ireland, a real oddball. Never married. Rich enough to pay off the national debt.” McCrae grinned. “And I’m his only living relative.”

  “Is he still… I mean, alive?”

  “He has a ham radio. Ham operators have been passing along his messages. Uncle Mac’s got himself a private estate over there. And this’ll get you. He’s reviving the religion of Druidism – tree worship, the whole magilla.”

  “He sounds crazy.”

  “Not crazy, just weird.”

  “And you’re his only heir? How can you be sure of that or that inheritance will… Things have changed, you know.”

  McCrae shrugged. “Uncle Mac and I are look-alikes. He was always pretty fond of me. Things being the way they are, what better thing do I have on my plate than to go over and look after my own interests?”

  “Well, I wish you luck.”

  “You, too, Will. You’re gonna need it.”

  “I still don’t understand what made you suspect a… bomb?”

  “I know things about Turkwood that most people don’t even whisper.”

  “You know him?”

  “From before the plague and since then… by phone. That’s what worries me, Will. I know things he might want erased. You, though, I can’t figure why he might want you out unless it’s just another write-off.”

  Ruckerman tried to swallow in a dry throat, remembering how cautious Saddler had been. Not a word of what he carried in his case, the special search program from DA, none of that must get to Turkwood. That had been the reason for the ridiculous charade at the quarantine station. Accidental contamination!

  “You okay?” McCrae asked. “You look sorta peaked.”

  “This is insane,” Ruckerman muttered. “It’s vital that I get to England! And you must get to Ireland, find out if they really have O’Neill. My God! If it’s O’Neill and he could be persuaded to talk!”

  “If,” McCrae said. “If they really have O’Neill and if the son-of-a-bitch is still alive. I dunno, Will. If I were in Ireland and I had that guy in my hands…”

  “They know how important it would be to preserve him!”

  “Do they? And what difference does it make to them? What’ve they got to lose?”

  McCrae released his harness. “I’m going back for another look around. Same drill. Don’t touch anything, Will.”

  “Mister McCrae?”

  “Call me Mac.”

  “Yes, well, Mac…” Ruckerman shook his head. “No, it’s too wild.”

  “Nothing’s too wild. What’s making you nervous?”

  “Both Doctor Saddler and the President were very anxious that… ahhh, this trip be kept secret from Turkwood, that is, until…”

  “Secret? Why?”

  “I, uh, don’t know.”

  “You do know but you’re not saying. Christ! I’ve got myself another hot cargo!”

  “I’m sorry, Mac, but this is all probably just our active imaginations. These are times for…”

  “These are times for active imaginations.” He stared at the instrument panel. Presently, he touched a white button above the throttle console. A red light went on above the button. “That could be because we’re going too fast,” he muttered. He disengaged the autopilot, grasped the throttles and eased them back.

  Ruckerman watched the airspeed indicator crawl back into the green band, stopping at 120.

  Again, McCrae touched the white button. Again, the red light flashed.

  “Could be a circuit malfunction,” McCrae said.

  “What’re you doing?” Ruckerman asked.

  McCrae pushed the throttles forward, checked their course and restored the autopilot. They were out over open ocean, only a thinly scattered cloud cover underneath. The sun was bright, throwing white sparkles off the waves.

  “There’s a little barometric switch gadget that’s been used a few times,” McCrae said. “My friends once said Turkwood likes it. It’s attached to a wad of plastic explosive and the whole thing’s seated in a landing gear compartment. It’s armed when you lower the gear and, if you go below a set altitude, kapowie!”

  “What… what set altitude?”

  “Maybe a couple hundred meters. Right down there when you’re on final, the field in front of you and not a damn thing you can do about it. No time to jump out with a parachute, provided you even have a parachute, which we don’t. Right down there where you’re sure to smear yourself all over the landscape. Real helmet-funeral stuff.”

  “Helmet funeral?”

  “They recover just about enough of your body to fill a standard flight helmet.”

  “What evidence do you have that…”

  “That little red light there. Emergency confirmation circuit. Green says gear’s up and seated, or down and seated, whichever shows on this indicator up here.” McCrae pointed to another switch above his right knee. A green “gear up” light glowed above the switch. “When I test, the light says gear’s not up, but we’re flying as though everything’s in order.”

  “Could there be some other explanation?”

  “Circuit malfunction. But Jesus! A whole platoon of mechanics checked out this bird.”

  Ruckerman thought about this for a moment. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “It’s paranoid!”

  “With Turkwood? That’s the safest way to go.”

  Ruckerman felt anger taking over. It was an emotion he loathed. The mind did not work clearly with any strong emotion. Rational thought – the world’s only future lay in rational thought. Science failed when rational thought failed. The anger continued to mount.

  “What the hell can we do about it?” he demanded. “How can we be sure your suspicions are even…”

  “Let me think about it, Will.” McCrae checked his instruments and the autopilot, confirmed their position and leaned back in his seat. He closed his eyes.

  Ruckerman watched him, embarrassed by the angry outburst. A patsy! McCrae’s suspicions were all fantasy. The computer program, the summations of other projects, all of the material back there in that bag… and O’Neill possibly in Ireland! God! He might even get a chance to interview the man personally. What could be more important than that? The President might do many things to stay in power and keep his world in order, but he certainly would not jeopardize the efforts to find a plague cure.

  Slowly, Ruckerman grew aware of a strange sound. He looked at McCra
e. The man was snoring! The bastard was asleep! How could he sleep after… after…

  McCrae snorted and sat upright, opening his eyes. “They’ve got lakes in England,” he said. “A high lake… or maybe even a high field.” He reached down to his left, fingered through a series of charts there and extracted one, opening it in front of him. He scanned it, his lips working. “Yeah. Yeah, a nice high one right up there above Aberfeldy.” He restored the chart to its place beside him, “We fake engine trouble and… swoosh.”

  “How far will we be from Huddersfield?” Ruckerman asked.

  “Don’t worry, Will,” McCrae said. “You’re a VIP. They’ll wheel you around in a limousine. Me, I’m small potatoes and few in the hill. I gotta find a way to get back to Ireland and then to Uncle Mac’s place.”

  McCrae turned and grinned at Ruckerman, a wide toothy expression in that lantern-jawed face. “Besides, I’m captain of this here ship. I say where she goes.”

  Ruckerman scowled at him, then turned away. Insane suspicions! But a few more hours’ delay… What did it really matter? Just as long as McCrae was satisfied. The selfish bastard! Harebrained! Another thought crept into Ruckerman’s mind. He turned toward McCrae.

  “Granting that there’s an explosive device on this plane, what if it’s set to go off after a certain time?”

  “Then we feed the fishes,” McCrae said.

  Up the long ladder

  And down the short rope –

  To hell with King Billy,

  To hell with the Pope!

  – Songs of the New Ireland

  JOHN SAT in the far back of the armored car with only a slit in the steel beside him through which he could see the passing countryside, everything green upon green in the morning light. It was cold outside and the steel chilled his skin when he touched it. The seat was not padded. Father Michael and the boy occupied the seat in front of him, the boy curled up asleep with his head against the priest. The driver and an armed guard in front were a taciturn pair, ruddy-faced youths in military green, dark-haired both of them, with an oddly cynical alertness in their manner, as though they listened to some unseen speaker who warned them of terrible things to come.