by JC Ryan
“You mean, these rocks just, shoot light out of them like a laser beam?”
“Something like that, though it isn’t as focused. But, look here,” drawing the small rock from his backpack. “I saw this one go out when Nyree picked it up.”
Nyree ducked her head and blushed when she saw JR’s frown, but it wasn’t directed at her. It was a frown of puzzlement. “How…?”
“I don’t know, mate, that’s why I’m taking it back. I’ll have to examine it under one of those fancy microscopes that Rebecca and Nyree have.” Then, thinking twice, he turned to Nyree. “You have no idea what caused that?”
“No,” she reminded him, “my specialty is microbiology, I don’t know a thing about rocks. I’m pretty sure that of the three, animal, vegetable or mineral, those fall squarely into the mineral category. Your bailiwick, Robert.”
“Maybe so, but this is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“Well,” said JR, “The thing to do is look at it under magnification, take a picture and send it back to the Foundation. Let them find someone who can explain it.”
“That’ll do ‘er,” Robert replied. They continued to the rail line terminus to wait for Summers and his crew to appear, and then everyone left the valley for the night.
~~~
Examining the Mu36 mutation of the gene from fifty-one samples took time and infinite patience, not to mention both 10th Cycle microscopes. Therefore, the next morning when Robert requested some time with one of them to examine his rock, an incredulous Hannah flatly refused to relinquish either of them. Ben hadn’t appeared at breakfast, but she expected him at any moment, and he would need the one she wasn’t using. If and when they finished their task, Robert could have one for his project. JR agreed that the virus study took priority, and Robert understood, though he was disappointed. He resumed cataloging his soil samples instead.
It was two hours later when Hannah, absorbed in her examination, realized that Ben still hadn’t made an appearance. She didn’t begrudge him his rest, but it seemed that he never got to the lab as early as she, nor stayed as late. Accordingly, she took a break and found Rebecca.
“I’m concerned about Ben. He seems more tired than he should be,” she stated.
“What’s he doing?” Rebecca asked.
“Well, actually, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him all day. I assume he’s sleeping.”
Alarmed, Rebecca questioned Hannah about Ben’s demeanor on the previous day. What she heard worried her as well. She told Hannah she would take care of it and went to JR.
“Honey, I’m afraid Ben is sick,” she announced.
JR was sitting at his desk, reading the news feed that Sarah had forwarded from Mary’s firm. None of it was good news. When Rebecca appeared and made her statement, he looked up in surprise. “Well, is he or isn’t he?”
“That’s just it, he hasn’t come into the lab this morning. I’d like you to go with me to his room.”
JR stood, stretched, and looped his arm around her shoulders. “Lead the way.”
When they reached the dormitory, they consulted the handwritten directory for the correct room, then knocked on the door. There was no answer.
“Where could he be?” Rebecca fretted.
“Let’s make sure he isn’t here, before we mount a search,” JR responded. He tried the doorknob. Locked. Taking a master key from the key ring at his waist, JR unlocked the door and opened it a few inches, sticking his head in cautiously before uttering a muffled oath and flinging the door open for Rebecca to see. Ben lay in tangled sheets, a sheen of sweat on his face and breathing raggedly.
“Oh, no,” Rebecca sighed. “This is the virus; he’s showing symptoms now. Damn it, JR, this could mean it’s mutated.”
By now, JR was almost as familiar with the behavior of viruses as Rebecca and the virologists were. He knew that by going unprotected into the room, he and Rebecca had likely been exposed to a mutated version. There was no help for it now, though. They needed to get Ben to the infirmary and begin treatment as soon as possible. With difficulty, they roused Ben and asked how he felt.
“Lousy,” was the answer. “So much for my bastard German blood.”
JR sat with him while Rebecca scurried back to the infirmary for a mask, informing Hannah as she scooped it up that they had found Ben and he was quite ill. For the first time, Rebecca saw a look of regret and compassion cross Hannah’s wrinkled countenance. Maybe she had a heart after all.
Half an hour later, they had supported Ben while he took a cooling shower after determining his temperature to be 102F. They dressed him in a fresh hospital gown, gave him a mask to avoid infecting anyone else in the hallways, and helped him to the infirmary, JR taking most of his weight as they walked. Once he was comfortable in a bed, Hannah and Rebecca cooperated in getting an IV started, blood samples drawn and antiviral medications administered. Though none of this treatment had helped before, Rebecca was determined to fight for Ben’s life. When she had him settled, she urged Ben to rest, sleep if he could. When it was time to speak with his parents on the other side of the world, she would wake him. Obediently, he closed his eyes.
“Hannah, why would this happen now? He’s been here for weeks!”
“I can’t account for it, Rebecca. We know too little about the disease. However, I will know soon if the virus has taken on a new form. We must pray that it has not, or everyone here may be doomed.”
Rebecca appreciated the sentiment, though she reflected that they may all be doomed anyway. But, how could one live with the constant threat of death raining from the sky? It wasn’t possible to be normal and worry about a nuclear bomb all of the time at the same time. Therefore, she put it firmly out of her mind, trusting JR and Daniel to deal with it while she dealt with her patient.
With Ben out of commission, Hannah withdrew her objection to Robert’s use of one of the 10th Cycle microscopes, not realizing that she could have called on Nyree to help her with her work. Robert didn’t think of it either, in fact, no one did. The oversight delayed discovery of the viral vector, though it had already been some weeks since Nyree unwittingly had the key in her hand.
Robert worked quickly to prepare slides of shavings from his rock to view under the powerful imaging tool. What he saw puzzled him further. Where he had expected an amorphous form of the iron, due to the presumed high heat of the lava with which it was mixed, he instead found a crystalline structure which also exhibited highly magnetic properties. It was as if the ferrous content of the basaltic lava of the rock had been reheated and forced to form a crystalline structure on the atomic level. His first thought was that it looked man-made. Robert had some knowledge of artificial crystalline structures, but it wasn’t his specialty. This was outside his knowledge base. After carefully preserving the record photographically, he returned the microscope to the infirmary. Afterward, he sent his findings to a friend in Chile who was one of the foremost solid state chemists in the world.
Chapter 26 - Ten thousand suicide bombers
Harper’s foreign policy advisers suggested that the best place to convey the positive news that some Middle Eastern people may have natural immunity to the virus might be Turkey, rather than Saudi Arabia. While both were nominally allied with the US, it was becoming moot as both countries had set aside their differences with Iran and joined the Death to the Infidels consortium of countries. It was a peculiar institution of diplomacy that an ally might smile at you one minute and stab you in the back the next, Harper reflected. While his advisers dithered about which country to approach, or perhaps to approach both, he received a discouraging call from Daniel in Antarctica.
“Mr. President, I understand the CDC has informed you that our virologist may have offered a modicum of hope for Middle Eastern people of mixed heritage,” he said, without preamble.
“Yes, it was good news.”
“It was premature. Ben is ill, and its confirmed H10N7,” Daniel stated. Because of the unremitting stress and his forced separati
on from most of his loved ones, Daniel had lost his ability to soften a blow. Harper peered at his friend through the video link and was saddened to see that he had aged ten years within the past few weeks. He made a mental note to call Sarah to try to comfort her, but doubted that anything would.
“Oh, shit,” was his only comment.
“Indeed, sir. I’d hold off on announcing it if you haven’t already.”
“We haven’t. Keep me posted on your virologist’s health. The First Lady and I will be praying for his recovery.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
Harper called his people back in and forbade them to say anything to anyone about the potential mixed-blood solution. As of now, it appeared to be nothing of the kind.
His heart was heavy as he consulted his calendar and noticed that another meeting of the UN Security Council was scheduled for the following Thursday. He fully expected to be ordered to take drastic measures on his citizens, no matter what the damage to the irreplaceable resources in the Antarctic and no matter how senseless it would be. Grave doubts about what he would be expected to do included what would happen when megatons of ice were melted in a nuclear blast. What kind of flooding would it create for nearby New Zealand and Australia, perhaps South Africa?
Would it trigger a tsunami that would devastate Indonesia? Harper would make these arguments, and more, if his advisers could come up with any. But, if nothing persuaded them, he would be forced to act before nukes were aimed at his major cities. Wildly, he thought of several dramatic but ultimately futile threats. He would refuse and then resign as President. He would go to Antarctica himself and dare them to do it, knowing that if they dropped a nuke on a US President, war would ensue. Whatever it took, he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it.
Unable to bring himself to call Sarah Rossler in his current state of mind, he sought the First Lady and asked her to call, telling her he was busy but worried about their friend.
~~~
On Thursday, January 23rd, Harper stood before the UN Security Council attempting not to appear defeated. His arguments against a nuclear strike on Antarctica were marshaled, and he hoped to prevail by common sense, though he knew that the emotional impact of this week’s numbers was arrayed against him. Over eight hundred thousand new cases. Nearly a million and a half now doomed. And no cure or even temporary solution was in sight. The actual numbers were down slightly from the projections, but only because of strict quarantines in developed countries.
Medical resources in the Middle East were completely overwhelmed if they still stood, and nothing helped anyway. Therefore many, mostly poor, were going untreated except by their families. They were crowded together in rapidly-deteriorating camps in many countries, and even in those countries whose wealth was able to provide better accommodations the stench of illness and death was beginning to hang over the facilities with no hope of eradicating it. There was almost no chance conditions would improve without massive action by volunteers who weren’t of Middle Eastern origin. However, the murders of several such volunteers by radical groups hindered the recruiting of more.
To add to the misery, food supplies in the most affected countries were getting low. Of course, all Western embassies were now closed, even those that had survived the suicide bombings. Persons with white skin took their lives in their hands if they went into public in a Middle Eastern country. Most had fled. It was a dilemma no one knew how to solve. Help from the West was the only hope, barring a miracle, but the radicals made it impossible for help to come.
As Harper had expected, the first Security Council member to address him was the elected non-permanent member from Turkey. “President Harper, despite your claims to the contrary, all evidence points to an artificial manufacture of this hell-spawned virus by citizens of your country, aided and abetted by Israel. You have been urging patience for weeks now, while my countrymen have been dying in their thousands. It is time for you to accept accountability and eradicate the source. I demand that you destroy the base camp where the criminals are hiding with nuclear force, which should wipe out the source of the virus. Let me add that I convey this demand upon orders from my government, and that your failure to act may result in my country withdrawing from NATO and joining forces with the Arab League.”
“Representative Demir, let me first offer my deepest condolences for the loss of your citizens, indeed for all the losses that your region has suffered. It grieves me that we are still discussing bioweapons when thorough searches by an international task force has found no such programs in the US. While we stand ready to try our citizens for whatever crimes you care to charge them with, they are in fact innocent until proven guilty. It goes against our entire history to execute them without fair trial.”
“This is an extraordinary circumstance,” Demir retorted. “And it seems to me that you had no compunction when it came to executing Osama bin Laden without trial.”
Harper was outraged at the comparison of this situation with the bin Laden fiasco. With difficulty, he reined in his temper to speak rationally. “Representative Demir, there are fundamental differences between the bin Laden case and this one. Though I have no need to justify our actions to you, I will explain them to you. First, bin Laden was not a US citizen; he was an avowed international terrorist who admitted to the cowardly and heinous attack on our innocent civilian citizens on 9/11 as well as others. When we raided his compound, it was in an attempt to arrest him and bring him here for a fair trial. He elected to resist arrest. Unfortunately, we sometimes must use deadly force when a criminal resists arrest. The Rossler Foundation expedition has not done so. They are actively working to find a cure for what you so eloquently termed this hell-spawned disease. Bin Laden was a hell-spawned disease.”
“Why then are they not here to answer our charges?” Demir asked, wisely deciding that the bin Laden card wasn’t going to play.
“They are under quarantine, as are any other individuals who exhibit infection, whether or not it has made them ill. I might add that they voluntarily quarantined themselves before the rest of the world was aware of the danger. There is no practical way for them to leave in any case. They are more than two hundred miles from the nearest base and without transportation. Any attempt on their part to reach the base without air transport would be suicidal. Rest assured, they are not coming out. What you suggest is the killing of innocent people, people who might very well be able to find the source, and perhaps the cure, for this flu.
“When we have stopped the spread of the virus there will be plenty of time to bring them here for trial. Let us leave this line of discussion. There are other compelling reasons why what you demand is imprudent. Even before the current crisis, the ecological impact of rapidly-melting polar ice was being discussed among scientists as an inevitable and unstoppable potential disaster. Coastal cities and low-lying countries world-wide have already seen the impact, and Asia is seen as the region most likely to be disastrously impacted over the next two hundred years. If anyone were to deploy a nuke there, you could expect it to disrupt the stability of the dormant volcanoes, which could have the effect of melting the ice cap even more rapidly. The strike itself could potentially set off a tsunami that would inundate Indonesia, Malaysia—essentially all of the Pacific Islands and low-lying coastal countries like Bangladesh. That might not affect the Arabian Sea, but the rise in overall sea level would, eventually.
“Furthermore, deploying a nuclear weapon has global consequences, no matter where you do it, particularly if it is a surface strike. I submit that your desire for revenge would have severe and unintended consequences for millions of innocent people, the majority of them from your region of the globe.” Harper sat down, confident that he had dispelled any notion of a nuclear strike.
“If not a nuclear solution, then we must send military forces to secure the area and execute the criminals.”
“Again, there is no need, and there will be no executions without a trial. The members of the expedition have
voluntarily quarantined themselves, and indeed they were the first to call our attention to the coming crisis.”
“So, you propose to do nothing and you expect us to accept what is happening without the satisfaction of seeing the miscreants punished?”
“I think you have not been listening carefully. I have a proposal, and that is that we stop this senseless discussion and work together to prevent the deaths of millions more people. I am sure you are intelligent enough to know by now that if we don’t stop the virus there will be no one left to exact your revenge. I am amazed that, among all this death and disaster and human misery, the only thing you have on your mind is to go and bomb a few innocent people in Antarctica. If you can explain to me how that is going to stop millions more from dying I am happy to listen. So are you going to work with me to stop this virus or not?”
With that, the chairman called for a vote, and by a narrow margin it was decided that Harper’s arguments were valid. For now, there would be no action taken. Common sense had prevailed again, but for how much longer? Several members suggested that a deadline be imposed for an answer, and that if the deadline passed with no progress, the US would be expected to send a military presence to ensure the expedition would not leave Antarctica. To this, Harper agreed, seeing no harm in deploying troops to ensure what the expedition was voluntarily doing in the first place. That the deadline was only three weeks away virtually ensured that he would have to do it. By that time, the world-wide death toll would be approaching that of the 1918 outbreak of Spanish flu, and the following week would double it.
