Invasion (43 page)

Everyone read the summary silently. It suggested that rhinoviruses had limited utility as biological warfare agents. The reason given was that although the upper respiratory infections would affect the performance of a modern army, it would not be to a significant degree, and certainly not as much as an enterovirus causing diarrheal disease.

“Sounds like they were not so high on rhinoviruses,” Pitt said.

“True,” Harlan said. “But we’re not trying to incapacitate an army. We just want the virus to get in there and stir up metabolic trouble to bring the alien virus out in the open.”

“Here’s something that sounds interesting,” Sheila said, pointing to a subsection in the index. It was
artifical rhinoviruses
.

“That’s what we need,” Harlan said enthusiastically. He flipped through the pages until he came to the section. He read rapidly. Pitt tried to do the same, but the text might as well have been inscribed in Sanskrit. It was all highly technical jargon.

“This is perfect! Absolutely perfect!” Harlan said. He looked at Sheila. “It’s tailor-made, both literally and figuratively. They’ve put together a rhinovirus that has never seen the light of day, meaning no one has any immunity to it. It’s a serotype that no one has ever been exposed to so everybody will catch it. It’s…made to order!”

“Seems to me we’re making a rather large leap of faith
here,” Sheila said. “Don’t you think we should somehow test this hypothesis?”

“Absolutely,” Harlan said with great excitment. He reached over and put his hand on the latch to the freezer door. “I’ll get a sample of the virus for us to grow out. Then we’ll test it on those mice that I had infected. Boy, am I glad I did that.” Harlan opened the freezer and disappeared inside.

Pitt looked at Sheila. “Do you think it will work?” he asked.

Sheila shrugged. “He seems pretty optimistic,” she said.

“If it does work, will it kill the person?” Pitt asked. He was thinking about Cassy and even Beau.

“There’s no way to know,” Sheila said. “For as much as we know, at this point we’re stumbling around in the dark.”

“HOLD UP!” VINCE SAID. HE HAD THE BINOCULARS
pressed against his eyes. “I think I see some tracks leading off toward the south.”

“Where?” Beau asked.

Vince pointed.

Beau nodded. “Take us down to the ground,” he told the pilot.

The pilot set the helicopter down on the tarmac. Still, a tremendous amount of sand and dust swirled up into the air.

“I hope all this dirt doesn’t cover the tracks,” Vince said.

“We’re far enough away,” the pilot said. He turned off the engine and the rotors came to a halt. Vince and the
policeman sitting next to him, named Robert Sherman, immediately got out and jogged up the road to where the tracks were. Beau and the pilot climbed out of the cab as well, but they stayed next to the copter.

Beau was breathing heavily through his mouth with his tongue hanging out like a panting dog. The alien skin was not equipped with sweat glands, and he was beginning to overheat. He looked around for shade, but there was no escape from the merciless sun.

“I want to get back into the chopper,” Beau said.

“It’ll be too hot in there,” the pilot said.

“I want you to start the engine,” Beau said.

“But that will make it difficult for the others to return,” the pilot said.

“The engine will be started!” Beau growled.

The pilot nodded and did as he was told. The air conditioning came on and quickly lowered the temperature.

Outside the slowly rotating blades kicked up a miniature sandstorm. They could barely see the two men a hundred yards ahead as they bent over to examine the ground.

The radio activated and the pilot slipped on his headset. Beau glanced off at the featureless horizon to the south. Along with his anger he was feeling progressively anxious. He hated these human emotions.

“It’s a message from the institute,” the pilot told Beau. “There’s a problem. They cannot go to full power on the electrical grids. The system trips the circuit breakers.”

Beau’s long snakelike fingers intertwined to form tight, knotlike fists. His pulse quickened. His head pounded.

“What should I tell them?” the pilot asked.

“Tell them I’ll be back soon,” Beau said.

After signing off, the pilot removed his headphones. He was experiencing a trace of Beau’s mental state via the collective consciousness, and he fidgeted in his seat. He was relieved when he saw the others returning.

Vince and Robert had to cover their faces against the stinging sand as they ducked under the rotating blades to climb into the copter. They didn’t try to talk until the door was closed.

“It’s the same tracks that were at the old gas station,” he said. “They head south. What do you want to do?”

“Follow them!” Beau said.

WITH GREAT DIFFICULTY HARLAN, SHEILA, PITT, AND
Jonathan had managed to get six of the infected mice into a type III biological safety cabinet.

“It’s a good thing they weren’t rats,” Pitt said. “If they had been any larger than mice, I don’t think we could have handled them.”

Harlan was letting Sheila put disinfectant and bandages on several of the bites he’d gotten. “I knew they were going to be trouble,” he said.

“What are we going to do now?” Jonathan asked. He’d become intrigued by the experiment.

“We’re going to introduce the virus,” Harlan said. “It’s in that tissue culture flask that’s already inside the hood.”

“Where does this cabinet vent?” Sheila asked. “We don’t want this virus getting out if it’s not going to work.”

“The exhaust is irradiated,” Harlan said. “No worry there.”

Harlan stuck his bandaged hands into the thick rubber
gloves that penetrated the front of the cabinet. He grasped the tissue culture flask, pulled out the stopper, and poured the medium out in a flat dish. “There,” he said. “That will vaporize rapidly, and then our little furry friends will be breathing in the artificial virus.”

“What are the black dots on the back of each mouse?” Jonathan asked.

“Each dot represents how many days ago the mouse was infected,” Harlan said. “I was infecting them sequentially so that I could follow the infestation process physiologically. Now I’m glad I did it. There might be a different reaction depending on how much the enabled virus had expressed itself.”

For a few minutes all four people stood in front of the cabinet and watched the mice race around the cage.

“Nothing is happening,” Jonathan complained.

“Nothing on the level of the entire organism,” Harlan said. “But my intuition tells me a lot is happening on a molecular/cellular level.”

A few minutes later Jonathan yawned. “Wow,” he said. “This is like watching paint dry. I’m going back to the computer.”

A few minutes later Pitt broke the silence. “What is interesting is how they are seemingly working together. Look how they are forming a pyramid to explore up the glass.”

Sheila grunted. She’d seen the phenomenon but wasn’t interested. She wanted to see something physical happen to the mice. Since their level of activity hadn’t changed, she was beginning to feel progressively nervous. If this experiment didn’t work, they’d be back to square one.

As if reading Sheila’s thoughts, Harlan said: “We shouldn’t have long to wait. My guess is that it will only take the induction of one cell to initiate a cascade. My only worry is that we didn’t test the viability of the virus. Maybe we should do that.”

Harlan turned away to do what he’d suggested when Sheila grabbed his arm. “Wait!” she cried. “Look at that mouse with the three dots.”

Harlan followed Sheila’s pointing finger. Pitt crowded in behind, looking over Harlan’s shoulder. The mouse in question had suddenly stopped its incessant rapid wandering around the cage to sit back on its haunches and repeatedly wipe its eyes with its front paws. Then it jerked a few times.

The three observers exchanged glances.

“Are those mouse sneezes?” Sheila asked.

“Damned if I know,” Harlan said.

The mouse then swayed and toppled over.

“Is it dead?” Pitt asked.

“No,” Sheila said. “It’s still plainly breathing, but it doesn’t look so good. Look at that foamlike stuff coming out of its eyes.”

“And mouth,” Harlan said. “And there’s another mouse starting to have symptoms. I think it is working!”

“They are all having symptoms,” Pitt said. “Look at that one with the most dots. It looks like it is having a seizure.”

Hearing the commotion Jonathan returned and managed to squeeze his head between the others. He caught a quick glance at the ailing mice. “Ugh,” he said. “The foam has a greenish tinge.”

Harlan put his hands back into the gloves and picked up the first mouse. In contrast to its earlier belligerent behavior, it did not resist. It lay calmly in the palm of his hand breathing shallowly. Harlan put the animal down and reached for the one that had had the seizure.

“This one is dead,” Harlan said. “Since it had been infected for the longest time, I guess that’s telling us something.”

“It’s probably telling us how the dinosaurs died,” Sheila said. “It was certainly rapid.”

Harlan put the dead animal down and withdrew his hands. He rubbed them together enthusiastically. “Well, the first part of this experiment has gone very nicely, I’d say. Now that the animal trials are over, I think it’s time for the human trials to begin.”

“You mean release the virus?” Sheila said. “Like open the door and throw it out.”

“No, we’re not yet ready for clinical fieldwork,” Harlan said with a twinkle in his eye. “I was thinking about the next stage being more close to home. I was thinking about me being the experimental subject.”

“Now wait…” Sheila protested.

Harlan held up his hand. “There’s a long history of famous medical people using themselves as the proverbial guinea pigs,” he said. “This is a perfect opportunity to follow suit. I’ve been infected, and even though it has been a number of days, I’ve kept the infestation to a minimum by the monoclonal antibody. It’s now time for me to rid myself of the virus altogether. So rather than thinking of myself as a sacrificial lamb, I think of myself as a beneficiary of our collective wit.”

“How do you propose to do this?” Sheila asked. It was one thing to experiment with mice, quite another with a fellow human being.

“Come on,” Harlan said. He grabbed one of the tissue cultures inoculated with the artificial rhinovirus and headed for the sick bay. “We’ll do this the same way we did it with the mice. The difference is that you’ll lock me into one of the containment rooms.”

“Maybe we should use another animal first,” Sheila said.

“Nonsense,” Harlan said. “It’s not as if we have the luxury of a lot of time. Remember that Gateway situation.”

Everyone trooped after Harlan, who was obviously intent on using himself as an experimental subject. Sheila tried to talk him out of it all the way to the containment room. Harlan was not to be deterred.

“Just promise me you’ll lock the door,” Harlan said. “If something really weird were to happen, I don’t want to jeopardize all of you.”

“What if you need medical attention?” Sheila said. “Like, God forbid, CPR.”

“That’s a chance I have to take,” Harlan said fatalistically. “Now get, so I can catch my cold in peace.”

Sheila hesitated for a moment while trying to think of some other way to talk Harlan out of what she thought was a premature folly. Finally she stepped back through the air lock hatch and dogged it closed. She looked through the glass as Harlan gave her a thumbs-up sign.

Admiring Harlan’s courage Sheila returned the gesture.

“What’s he doing?” Pitt asked from the hallway. The air lock was only big enough for one person.

“He’s taking the stopper out of the tissue culture flask,” Sheila said.

“I’m going back to the computer,” Jonathan said. The tension was making him feel uncomfortable.

Pitt stepped into the neighboring air lock and looked through the porthole at Cassy. She was still sleeping peacefully.

Pitt returned to the air lock occupied by Sheila. “Anything happening?”

“Not yet,” Sheila said. “He’s just lying down making faces at me. He’s acting like he’s twelve years old.”

Pitt wondered how he’d behave if the situation were reversed, and he was the one in the room. He thought he’d be terrified and unable to joke around like Harlan.

“WAIT A SECOND!” VINCE SAID EXCITEDLY. “TURN AROUND
so I can see where we just passed over.”

The pilot banked the copter to the left in a wide circle.

Vince snapped the binoculars to his eyes. The terrain below looked as featureless as it had looked for the previous hour. It had turned out to be extraordinarily difficult to follow the tire tracks from the air, and they’d taken many wrong turns.

“There’s something down there,” Vince said.

“What is it?” Beau growled. His mood had darkened. What he’d thought was going to be a simple matter of plucking Cassy out of the desert, was turning into a fiasco.

“I can’t tell,” Vince said. “But it is worth taking a look at. I’d recommend we go down.”

“Land!” Beau snarled.

The helicopter settled down in the middle of its own
sandstorm. It was worse than earlier, without the tarmac. As the air cleared everyone immediately saw what had attracted Vince’s attention. It was a van with a camouflage cover partially blown off by the wind generated by the rotor blades.

“Finally something positive,” Beau snapped as he alighted from the helicopter. He strode over to the van. Grasping the tarp he ripped it off. He opened the front passenger-side door.

“She was in here,” he said. He looked in the back of the van, then turned to survey the area.

“Beau, there’s another communication from the institute,” the pilot called out. He’d remained next to the helicopter. “They want you to know that they’d received word that the Arrival is expected in five Earth hours from now. And they want to remind you that the Gateway is not ready. What should I tell them?”

Beau gripped his head with his long fingers and pressed his temples in an attempt to relieve his tension. He breathed out slowly. Ignoring the pilot he yelled to Vince that Cassy was nearby. “I can sense it,” Beau added. “But it is strangely weak.”