In the little triangular cabin, tucked under the forepart of the sloop, Pat was busy. The hissing of the pressure lamp and the crackling of hamburgers on the stove made a pleasant, home-like sound. It was cosy and warm here, in contrast to the fog-chill above. The smell of onions and beef drifted back to where I stood and I sniffed hungrily. She'd be a good wife, I thought as I watched her, and a good mistress too. She was still wearing her bathing suit and, as I looked from her full brown thighs up over the curving hip-line to the small breasts pushing against the thin bra, I felt the slow pounding pulse and deep excitement of desire. Quietly I came close behind her. She started as my cold hands touched her, the instant of realization passed, and then she came back hard against me and her eyes were on mine as she turned her lips for my kiss. For a moment only she stayed, then, with a backward shove of her body, she tried to push me away.
"Look, darling, this is all very nice, but the hamburgers are burning."
"Let them," I whispered, my hands roving a bit. "I'm burning too."
"That can wait." Her eyes seemed to promise me as she brushed at a stray brown curl with the back of her hand. The spatula, waving above her head, flashed in the flickering gas light. I let her go.
"Why don't you fix us a drink? There's time before we eat."
"If I drink too much I won't want you or the hamburgers either," I complained, but I went to the cooler and pulled out the gin and vermouth. "Someday," I thought morosely, "someday, she must give in."
I put her drink in the shelf where she could reach it as she worked and squeezed between the bench seat and the folding table while I watched her toss a salad. As a medical technician she was good, and the same thoroughness and skill went into her cooking; into everything she did for that matter.
The drink was good and the salad sat before me in its green crispness. Pat was lifting the hamburgers off the fire and, as the cracking ceased, I felt a low, insistent, base rumble rise above the hissing of the lamp. The night was quiet, no foghorns because there were no ships near enough. We had drifted fairly close to the mainland, behind some small islands, off the usual channels. The auxiliary motor was still shut down and for a moment I wondered if the currents had carried us in towards the rocks; but the noise was not the splash of waves on shore, it was too steady. Now Pat was standing, frying pan and spatula in either hand, and her straight dark eyebrows down in a frown of concentration.
"Do you hear it too?"
She nodded.
"Keep the hamburgers warm, I'm going up to have a look."
She moved back to the stove as I climbed up into the cockpit.
In a rising breeze the mist was swirling and, from the east, as the fog patches thinned out, the lighter cloud showed where a full moon lay hidden. The noise was louder now, and coming fast, a beat of engines rising above the splash of wavelets against the bow of the sloop. I couldn't see where the ship was. There was no foghorn; neither the doleful groaning of the deep sea ships nor the sharp cough of the coastal steamer, bouncing its sound waves off the island hills, told me where it lay.
"The stupid oaf," I muttered to myself. "What's he doing in this deserted channel, and why doesn't he signal?"
There was no time to wonder. I jumped to the stern and grasped the tiller while I pushed down firmly on the starter button. The engine was cold and coughed reluctantly in the foggy air. I was still prodding the starter and working the throttle when the fog bank broke apart.
Above, to the east, the mottled moon, pale grey and blue like a Danish cheese, had risen over the Coast Range. Across the waters of the channel ran a rippling bar of light, cutting in half the white-walled arena of fog as the late afternoon sun pierces the dust of a Mexican corrida. Charging out of the misty north, like a Miura bull from the gate, came a black, high-prowed ship, moving fast through its phosphorescent bow wave. It came on, straight for us, and the sputtering motor still did not respond. I stood up and worked the tiller back and forth, trying to scull with the rudder and swing our bow to starboard.
"Pat, Pat, for God's sake get on deck! It's a collision!"
I was still yelling when the thick black mass rose over me and the bowsprit of the sloop splintered and buckled. The jolt threw me to my knees but I held the rudder hard over and we slid by, bumping and scraping along the port side of the vessel.
It was not a big ship, but bigger than a halibut boat. It seemed about the size and shape of those floating canneries I'd seen in Hokkaido when I'd worked with the Japanese National Police in 1952. I don't know whether that thought was first in my mind or whether it came later but I do know, in the middle of all the confusion I heard a command screamed out in Japanese, and the answering "Hai" barked back as only the Japs can say it. I thought I must have been mistaken when, a moment later, I saw the man. The moon was full on his face as he leaned out over the side, near the stern. For an instant we were quite close as I stood up, cursing the stupid so-and-so's who were ruining the beautiful woodwork of my boat. He was fair-haired, with a short brush cut. The eyes were deep set and shadowed too much to see the color. His face was broad, with high cheek bones, and the mouth wide and heavy under a short nose. I couldn't tell his height, but he looked strong and stocky. His hands, gripping the rail, seemed powerful even in that light. As we passed, the moonlight caught them and was reflected in a dull red glow from some large stone, a ring I presumed, on the back of his left hand. He didn't move or speak and I lost sight of him a second later when the pitching of the yacht in the stern wash threw me again to the deck. By the time I recovered, the steamer was across the open space and plunging back into the fog. In the swirling mist of its passage the flag at the stern fluttered out straight. It looked like a red ball on a white field.
"The hamburgers! My God, the hamburgers are on fire!"
I turned around, still dazed, to see Pat unscramble herself in the cockpit and drop back into the galley. I left her to it while I checked the wreckage of the port side fittings. We weren't holed, thank Goodness, so we could run for home under our own power. I steered in close to the shore of one of the islands where the fog had lifted, and dropped anchor. Then I went below. Pat was at the stove again. A new batch of hamburgers was under way and only a stain on the floor showed what had happened to the first lot.
"Mix us a drink, a big drink," was all she said, then.
The hamburgers were gone and we sat over our coffee. I was drowsy from the warmth and the hot sweetness of the Drambuie felt good as I took it slowly. Pat was rolling hers around the liqueur glass and watching the oily liquid slide back to the bottom. A quiet woman ordinarily, she was extremely so this night.
"Why so quiet, darling?" I reached for her hand. She looked at me and said nothing.
"Is it that damned ferret again?"
She nodded.
"Don't let it worry you so much, sweet. It's only a hunch and I don't think he's right."
"What if he is right, what then?" She went on without waiting for an answer. "I want children, I don't want to be sterile."
"Well you aren't, or at least I don't suppose so. Probably you won't be."
She looked at me scornfully. "What chance have I of avoiding the flu when millions of others are getting it?"
"Oh Lord, you women! Can't you see there's absolutely no evidence for this silly fear of yours? Damn Hallam and his wild ideas! Why don't you forget it?"
"Because I think he's right, that's why." She stood up abruptly. "Let's go on deck."
I followed her out into the cockpit. We were still at anchor, intending to start back after a few hours sleep. The sloop was as quiet as a resting seabird in the black shadow of a rocky point. It was cold. In a few minutes Pat shivered and came close to me, her arms about my waist. The keen air had awakened me, and, as I caressed her, smoothing away the little pebbles of gooseflesh on her shoulders and back, her warm body against mine stirred again the desire I had felt before the collision. She must have known. Slowly her arms came up and around my neck. Her head, cushioned on my chest, lifted and her full lips brushed mine lightly. For a moment I hesitated. Through the thin suit she felt naked under my hands, trembling with cold and excitement.
"I can't take much more of this, Pat," I whispered. "Either you quit right now or you go down to bed."
Her eyes opened. She looked straight at me for a long moment.
"Will your bunk hold both of us?" she asked as her lips closed hard on mine.
CHAPTER 4
We came back through the big glass doors hand in hand. The night watchman, making his last round, nodded and smiled at us as we wound up the stairs to the penthouse. We went through the showers together since nobody else was about. I scrubbed her back to get rid of the salt sea crystals and was rewarded with a warm, wet kiss. We reached the living room just as Dr. Hallam, freshly shaven and bright, came in for his breakfast.
"Welcome back, kids!" he boomed at us. "Did you have a good time?" He looked closely at Pat.
A slow flush deepened the color of her cheeks and he grinned elfishly. "I see you did. Well, let's have some breakfast. I have news for you and plenty of work, so eat heartily."
He pushed the toaster buttons and the bread dropped out of the cooler-keeper and lowered itself into the heating element. I set three cups and three glasses under the dispenser and dialled tomato juice and medium strong coffee. Pat cracked six eggs into three plates, added bacon and pushed them into the slots in the electronic oven. A minute later, with his mouth full of toast and egg, Hallam mumbled,
"After you left I waited for about two hours before Smith phoned. He had a preliminary report on the female ferrets. You'll be glad to hear this, both of you. He couldn't find a thing on any of them."
"Wonderful!" Pat breathed, and smiled at me radiantly.
"What about the pregnant one?" I said.
"There were only the usual changes in the ovaries associated with pregnancy. Mind you," he went on, "even with the new techniques, frozen sections are far from perfect, but I must admit I'd be disappointed if I weren't so relieved."
"Did the male ferrets show anything?" I said.
"He wasn't sure. He thought there were some inflammatory changes in the testicles but he wanted to wait for the paraffin sections to confirm it."
"Was there anything else?" Pat asked.
"Nothing except bronchial irritation, which one would expect."
It was eight o'clock when the telephone rang and I picked it up.
"Dr. Macdonald here," I said.
"Mac, is the boss in?" Smith asked.
"He's busy right now. Can I take a message?"
"Yes. Tell him the H and E's on those ferrets show only mild ovarian inflammation. The testicles are definitely inflamed ... a low grade thing with a lot of lymphocytes. There is swelling and some degeneration of the sperm cells but it doesn't seem to affect the hormone secreting elements."
"What about other organs?"
"Aside from nasal and bronchial inflammation, essentially negative."
"Have you any suggestions?"
"It's too early to come to any conclusions but I'd like to follow up on this. How about taking biopsies on the male ferrets rather than sacrificing them. Then maybe we can see what is happening, I mean what the progression of the disease is, in the same animal. You could snip out a piece of ovary on some females too!"
"It isn't easy but we can do it."
"How about the other animals?"
"Some of the mice look a bit sick this morning, but the monkeys are still healthy."
"Well, if you can get the biopsies to us soon, we should have a good idea, late tonight or tomorrow morning, of what's going on. Say, I just had a thought! Didn't George inoculate some ferrets when the epidemic first broke out?"
"I wasn't here but I believe he did. Why don't you ask Harry? He was working with the Chief when I was away. All those animals are in the other section anyway."
"I'll do that. With yours in the acute stage and the others convalescent, we should get a good idea of the progress of the disease. I'll let you know later."
Hallam was in the ferret room. I joined him there and told him of Smith's suggestions.
"This is going to be quite a day," he grinned wryly.
He was so right. It took several hours, and innumerable bites and scratches from indignant animals, fortunately the plastic gloves were tough enough not to tear, before the last snarling male writhed back into his cage to lick his smarting personal property. We stopped for lunch and went back to the more complicated task of operating on the females in the afternoon.
In the meantime, the testicular biopsies, in their fluid-filled bottles, were on their way to Tissue Path., to join those that Smith and his residents were already preparing from the convalescent ferrets. Speaking into Dictape machines, the junior residents described and numbered the specimens while deft-fingered girl technicians wrapped them in little packets and put those in tiny perforated boxes. They dropped the boxes into beakers filled with fixative which they then set up on the Technicon machines. The dials were set, the clock ticked, and hour by hour, as the timer clicked into the grooves of the wheel, the arms of the Technicon lifted, dangling their clusters of dripping boxes, turned like soldiers on parade, and dropped them again into the next beaker. On they went through the fixative that preserved the cells as they had been in life, the alcohols that slowly and carefully removed the water, the xylol that replaced the alcohol and, finally, the hardened shreds of tissue lay in melted paraffin, ready for the cutting.
But first they had to be embedded in paper boats full of melted wax which, when it hardened, held them securely. Then, in millionths of a metre, the incredibly fine edge of the microtome sliced off a ribbon of tissue, as a bacon slicer cuts pork. The technician laid the ribbons on a bowl of warm water, separated off each individual slice with her needle and guided it on to a prepared glass slide which was then laid aside to dry. That was not all. Now the process had to be reversed, the paraffin removed with xylol, the xylol with alcohol, the alcohol with water, before the pale white dots of tissue could be stained. There was no way of hurrying the process. Chemicals need time to react, and time they took, regardless of our impatience. At last the blue color of the Hematoxylin and the red of the eosin had been added in their turn and taken up by the tissues; the protective balsam and the slip cover had been placed over the sections; the slides had hardened enough to be put under the microscope.
With mounting excitement, Smith and his senior residents racked down the binocular microscopes to focus on the minute blue and red dots that lay beneath. Silently they looked, moving the slides jerkily but accurately with their fingers to view all the sections. Still silent, they swapped slides to check and re-check their findings. At last Smith straightened up and removed his spectacles. He rubbed his eyes wearily. He looked along the table at the three young men who had worked with him.
"Any doubts about this?" he said.
Three heads shook slightly. There was nothing to say. They were too tired for casual chatter. He pushed the Intercom switch.
"Dr. Hallam. Smith calling."
The sound came into the living room as we sat at midnight coffee. The rasping voice jarred us out of the apathy of exhaustion.
"This is Hallam."
"George, we've just read those testicular biopsies. There's a sub-acute inflammation in those with the flu, as we saw before; in the convalescent ferrets there is complete absence of spermatozoa with no evidence of new formation."
I looked at Pat. "Now who should be worried?"
"I've never heard of this before in ferrets with the flu," Hallam was saying. "I'd think of mumps except that it isn't easily transmitted to the weasel tribe and this isn't like mumps clinically."
"What do you propose to do now?"
Hallam thought for a moment. "Carry on with our animal experiments; but we can't afford to wait for the monkeys. We shall have to start working on people."
"How?"
"Get in touch with the Public Health Department and see if you can round up volunteers for testicular biopsy in convalescents from the first attack. If they don't want a biopsy maybe you can persuade them to give us a sperm count."
"You know we can't keep this hushed up if we do that. The papers are bound to get hold of it."
"I realize that," Hallam said grimly, "but they're going to know sooner or later. Maybe this will soften the blow when it does come."
"OK George, you're the boss. We can't do anything until morning. I'm going to close up shop and let everybody get some sleep."
"Good idea. Keep away from the flu if you can."
"Huh, fat chance. I've got my family anyway. It's my kids I'm worried about."
"There are times when I'm glad I'm a bachelor," Hallam replied and shut off the speaker.
"Doesn't look too good, does it?" I said.
"We'll know by tomorrow night, I hope."
"I can't figure this thing at all. An inflammation that destroys the testicular cells should give a lot of swelling and pain. Those ferrets were frisky enough and they didn't show any signs of orchitis."
"Neither did most of the human victims," Hallam said.
"Perhaps it's only a temporary arrest in the maturation of the sperm rather than destruction of the spermatogonia themselves. That could be the explanation for the low grade inflammation and the minimal symptoms."
"You mean there might be some interference with an enzyme system?" Pat said.
"Yes. We see it in anemias where the cells don't mature properly because of a lack of some vitamin like B12. The same sort of thing could be happening here, I suppose."
"Then it might be only temporary?"
"I sincerely hope so, especially if Smith finds the same in man as he reports in the ferrets."
"I wish I could share your optimism John," the Director said, "but if this is a weapon it won't have just a temporary effect. There would be no point to that." He yawned. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, as the Good Book says. Let's go to bed."
The alarm jarred me out of deep sleep. As I groped beside the bed for the still vibrating clock, I regretfully abandoned my dreams for the austere grey walls of my temporary room, and the dreary window view of a wet Vancouver dawn. The tide was out and the slimy green-spattered mud and rocks of the estuary looked like a surrealistic painting of a hangover. At the water's edge, a school of fishing boats angled in the mud, their tilted trolling masts reminding me of the broken antennae of some strange crayfish, stranded and dead on a fishmarket floor. And dead they were. No smoke came from their humpbacked little cabins; no fisherman climbed the slanted decks.
I wondered if the epidemic had silenced their motors, or was it just not the season for fishing. Were the lusty trollers and seiners worrying about their lost virility and gone home to test it out? The newspapers had been asked to play down their sterility stories, which had caused so much consternation yesterday, but even so it was common knowledge that those who had had involvement of the sex glands might be sterile.
I turned down the corridor to the kitchen and started the coffee dispenser. Pat was still asleep after a late night coaxing reluctant male and female ferrets into the same cage and to be friends instead of messily murdering each other. Chivalry among ferrets is not highly regarded, even with females in season. We wanted to see if they could produce families, not to see which one was the stronger sex. Tranquillizers are fine for the purpose but it takes a neat balance to eliminate the fight and keep the desire. Hallam was not around. He was an early riser and could probably be found watching the monkeys if I cared to go there. They had shown no symptoms as yet. Probably the incubation period was about the same as in man, and if so there had not been time for the fever to start.
I moved on again to the shower, taking it cool to clear my fuzzy head. Now there was little to do but wait; wait for the ferrets to get amorous; wait for the chattering monkeys to fall ill; wait for more biopsies of the human volunteers out there beyond the virus-proof walls of our chosen prison. I thought of the previous day, the second after our brief excursion. After breakfast we had rechecked the animals while Pat had transferred cultures, brought our records up to date and then Hallam and I sat in the living room playing cribbage while we waited for Smith's reports.
As he had predicted, the newspapers soon heard of the new investigations and the noon headlines, shown over the TV, were large and frightening. "Are Flu Victims Sterile?" theDaily Mailscreamed hysterically in three inch letters and went into a long discourse based only on a cautious statement, attributed to Dr. Smith, that some experimental animals, after the flu, showed a decrease in procreative powers.The Sunwas more cautious but the tune was the same. An hour after the papers appeared, Hallam ordered all telephone lines to the Laboratory shut down and a short dictated speech, intended to calm the hysteria, was played continuously over the trunks and repeated on both radio and TV.
The mayor came to the hospital, as mad as a clucking hen whose eggs have been disturbed, as indeed they had. She cooled off considerably after Hallam spoke to her on the inside telephone, and, in cooperation with the local director of the RCMP, the head of the Metropolitan School Board, the Medical Officer of Health and various other officials summoned to the spot, agreed to form a Public Safety Committee to take immediate action if the need arose. They too, after their meeting, could only sit and wait for Smith's report.
"Why didn't you go down and talk to them sir?" I said later.
"I don't want to get the flu."
I smiled condescendingly. "Oh? I didn't think it would mean that much to you."
"It doesn't," he said levelly, "but it would to you and Pat if I brought it back up here with me."
There was nothing I could say. I have seldom felt so foolish.
Later in the day, I played a lazy game of cribbage with Hallam while Pat knitted and watched TV at the other end of the room. Deciding to have some fun, as the Chief dealt a new hand, I picked up the paper that was lying on the table.
"Say, Pat, here's a little item that should interest you," I said, and pretended to read. "Lovely woman scientist, possible Nobel prize winner, knits little things and dreams of rose-covered cottage. I always wanted at least ten children, our reporter quotes Mrs.—" I started loudly, cocking one eye over the top of the paper; but I didn't finish.
Pat got up abruptly. For an instant I thought she would throw the wool at me, needles and all.
"You stinker ... you absolute stinker," she spat at me, and almost ran from the room.
"Lord! She must be getting stir crazy," I said, bewildered.
"John, sometimes I think you spent too many years overseas," Hallam said quietly. "You still can't imagine how a woman thinks."
That broke up the crib game. Neither of us had the heart to continue. For the first time I really began to imagine a world full of sterile people; the falling population; the frustrated family life; the emptying houses; the already empty schools.
"God, what a dreary prospect," I said aloud. "And we were worrying about overpopulation."
The Chief caught my train of thought but he just nodded. There was no answer.
An hour later the phone rang. He answered it and then turned to me with a smile. "That was a report from Smith about the ovaries of those convalescent ferrets I inoculated with the first cases of flu. They seem OK. Maybe it affects only a few females after all."
"Well, we can't go peeking into the tummies of all the ladies in Vancouver just to find out," I said.
"No, but we could try to get permission to biopsy ovaries on women who have abdominal operations in the city hospitals. Many of them have had the flu. It should tell us something."
He turned back to the telephone and in a matter of minutes Bruce Thompson had agreed to cooperate and to pass the word on to the surgical departments of the other hospitals in town.
Pat showed up to make us afternoon tea but she was clearly disturbed ... even more so when she heard the news.
"I thought you'd have been pleased to hear about the females," I said dubiously.
"Suppose it does apply to women. What good are active ovaries to a prospective mother if all the men are sterile?" she said, scornfully.
"Well, you could always marry a Russian, when they take over the world."
"Fool," she sneered. "That probably will be years from now, and I'll be too old. For another thing, I don't want to be part of anybody's harem, even for a baby."
"Where do you get that harem stuff?" I grunted. "The Russkis aren't Moslems."
"This isn't your good day, John," Hallam interrupted. "It is obvious that there will be a tremendous demand for fertile males, and I can even visualise the female voters of this country and the United States demanding a quota for Russian immigrants to this continent. Just how the disgruntled American males would react I don't know. It could lead to a very nasty situation, and maybe to that retaliatory war the Reds are trying to avoid. Of course, it could also mean civil war ... a war between the sexes ... with our males trying to revenge themselves on the Russians and our more realistic females trying to prevent it so they could use the Slavs to rebuild the nation ... on Communist terms of course."
"Boy, this is really science fiction gone wild," I said. "Seems as if I picked the wrong place to live, unless I can avoid the flu."
Pat didn't even look at me after that crack. The day dragged on. Radio reports came every few minutes and the interruptions of the TV programs to announce the spread of the epidemics were almost as frequent as the commercials.
By now the Chinese had admitted that thousands were dying in the big cities of Peiping and Shanghai, while panic had disrupted communications to the interior. The first frightened reports were in from India, where efforts to block the Himalayan passes were too late and refugees had spread the deadly "measlepox", as it was now called, to Assam and Upper Bengal. There were rumors of flu in Texas and the Rangers had redoubled their efforts to keep the Mexican "wetbacks" from sneaking across the Rio Grande. All trans-Pacific air travel was cancelled.
About that time, the Intercom lit up again.
"Are you there, George?" It was Dr. Smith.
"Yes. What have you found?"
"We have the reports on thirty sperm counts taken today from professional personnel in this hospital. They are all negative."
"You mean normal, I hope."
"I mean negative for sperm. Three are from doctors who are just over the fever. They show a few abnormal forms in the secretion but no live ones. All the others are several days convalescent and show nothing but epithelial cells, a few polymorphs and more lymphocytes."
"What about the biopsies?"
"We have half a dozen that we rushed through. The slides aren't the best but it's perfectly obvious that something serious is happening. The spermatogonia are degenerating. The Sertoli cells seem all right and the interstitial cells are apparently untouched."
"What's he mean?" Pat whispered to me.
"He means the cells that form the sperm are dying but the ones that give a man his masculinity are intact."
"How many more biopsies have you?" said the Chief.
"About fifty."
"That's not enough. We're going to need at least several hundred. There must be absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind that this is a national emergency when we present the facts to the Government. I know that the statisticians can prove that this present number is highly significant but a politician is much more impressed with a lot of people than with a small group."
Joe Armstrong came on the line. "George, I'm convinced now that this virus does have serious after-effects. Let me talk to the other hospitals. We can get enough specimens in another twenty-four hours to prove your point." He paused, obviously considering his words. "I can't go along with this secret weapon idea yet.... I don't think there's enough evidence. What do you say?"
"There isn't any evidence for the weapon theory," Hallam admitted, "but Gordon is well on the way to showing that the structure of the virus is synthetic. What I mean is that it looks more like a crazy mixture of mumps and flu than like any of the natural viruses or their known mutations."
"I still don't think we'd better let that story get out. There'll be enough hell raised as it is."
"All right ... just as long as we stop this thing."
"How do you suggest we go about it?"
"Joe, there isn't time to search for a way of preventing it by vaccines. It will take months to manufacture enough, even if we succeed. Our only hope is to alert the civil authorities to its after-effects and get a strict quarantine set up. Frankly, I think it's almost hopeless by now. The Eastern Seaboard started reporting cases just a short time ago. Agents must be working in seaport cities like Montreal, New York, Charleston and all the others. I'm afraid we're licked except for isolated communities in the far north or in some rural areas which can be ringed around with guards to prevent contamination. Every male we can save must be protected either until the disease dies out or we can devise a vaccine."
"Do you have any other ideas?"
"You could get a Blood Donor Program going to collect blood from those who have had the flu. We might be able to separate out antibodies from convalescent serum strong enough to give a temporary protection to those who haven't had the disease ... and then hope for a vaccine."
"OK, George," said the Intercom. "Why don't you three stay in there and work on the vaccine since you haven't had the flu yet. I'll alert the Minister of Health. The Public Safety Committee is already back in session."
"Do that, Joe," Hallam said, "and tell Harry Cope and Polly Cripps to stay on call. We're going to need help with the electron pictures and other procedures."
So that day had gone by and here was another one, a day of coffee drinking and waiting, a day of writing reports, of listening to the mounting clamor in the outside world. In the Vancouver area, schools were closed at noon. The Public Safety Committee, impressed sufficiently by yesterday's preliminary reports, barred all public meetings and ordered theatres, bars and dance halls to close. Families not yet affected by the flu were urged to stock up on supplies and then remain home. Quarantine regulations were put in effect to protect them. This reversal of the usual procedure in which those who had not had the disease were kept isolated, was explained as necessary since the majority of the people had already been victims and therefore were unsalvageable. By nightfall the day's biopsy reports were coming in from all the city hospitals. There was no doubt. Every male who had had the flu was sterile!
The extras hit the streets an hour after dark. The Lieutenant Governor came on the TV and radio to declare a state of emergency. Curfew was to be enforced, beginning the next night, for all except essential medical services and food supply. At least the country was aroused. All trace of former unconcern had disappeared.
I went to bed early. There was nothing more I could do.
CHAPTER 5
At midnight I awoke suddenly. My mind was alert and bright, with that extreme clarity which comes sometimes after working hard on a problem. The moon was pouring a pale light over the window sill. It bathed my face in its lambent glow as I lay there for a moment, wondering what chemical time bomb had exploded in my brain. I looked at my watch. It was midnight.
I got up and looked out. Spreading up from the delta, curling over the fishing fleet and the canneries, flowing between the houses and filling the streets as the incoming tide runs in the channels and covers the stones of a rocky shore, the fog filled the hollows and smoothed over the humps of the city, until at last all but the higher tops of the buildings sank under the woolly wave.
The sense of urgent discovery had faded from my mind. There was something I had to remember, I knew, something that my mind had worked out as I slept, but, though I searched for a clue, it would not come. Idly, in my wakefulness, I watched the fishing fleet as it slowly sank in the mist, until at last even the tall masts were gone. A bad night to be out fishing, I thought, but a good night for smugglers or anybody who didn't want to be seen.
"By God ... that's it! That must be it!"
The key had turned. The clue had been found. The sudden excitement of discovery set the pulse pounding in my ears until I thought it must be audible, like the ticking of an alarm clock. I opened the closet and rummaged in my suitcase for the sweater and light windbreaker and my old, cut-down paratrooper boots that I had brought from my apartment. It would be cold where I wanted to go, and go I must, virus or no virus.
I had just finished blousing my pants over my socks, GI style, and was moving towards the door when it opened, and Pat, holding a book in one hand, yawned in my face.
"What's all the noise about?" she said, standing there sleepily in her rumpled pajamas. The yawn froze in amazement and then snapped shut as her eyes travelled over me.
"Well, I declare!" she said. "Where on earth are you going?"
"I haven't time to explain," I said in a low voice, afraid of waking Hallam.
She suspected as much. "Have you told the Chief?"
"No, I don't want to tell him just now. I've got a hunch on this virus warfare idea of his. It's only a wild guess and I've got to go out to follow it up. He might not want me to take the risk of catching flu."
"I don't want you to either."
"I'm sorry, Honey, but I've got to do it. There's too much riding on this thing to let our personal affairs interfere."
"But you said yourself it's only a wild guess. Why risk our whole future on that?"
"Look, I'm going to keep away from people as much as possible, but I'm going out just the same. This may be the last chance I'll ever get to see if the boss is right."
"Then I'm going with you."
"Oh, hell! This is no job for a woman."
"It's no job for one man! Either I go or I wake up Dr. Hallam."
"All right," I said resignedly. "On your own head be it."
We trotted down the stairs and over to the parking lot. The Ferguson started easily and picked up speed quickly as the hydraulic drive fed power to the four wheels. I watched the center strip and wished for the radar control that was now being installed on the turnpikes south of the border. We didn't have it here yet so I had to rely on what little my eyes and ears revealed as we tunnelled through the fog. Over the Burrard Bridge it seemed thinner and we made better time. We dived back into the depths along Georgia and I used the curb as a guide as we curved through Stanley Park and over the Lion's Gate bridge. The tunnel would have been quicker but I wanted to see the extent of the fog. At the center of the bridge it was too deep to tell but that in itself was encouraging. We swung around the cloverleaf and on to the old West Van. road.
"Where are we going? Horseshoe Bay?" Pat said quietly, as she drew on a cigarette. It was the first time she had spoken since we started. I liked that about her; she could wait better than any other woman I knew.
"Yes, to the wharf."
"I'd like to know why, if you don't mind telling me."
"I don't mind at all. You should know," I said, and paused to reflect. "Light me a cigarette and I'll give you the whole picture as I see it."
I was lining up the facts in my mind as she put the burning cigarette to my lips.
"The first thing we have to do," I began, "is to assume that Hallam is right. If he is, if this is biological warfare, then how did it get started? There are several possible ways. The virus could be brought in by agents; it could be sprayed, or floated, or in some fashion sent ashore from ships or submarines; or it could be seeded from the air, either by aircraft or by something like those balloons the Japanese sent over on the air currents during World War II. Now, it started right in the city of Vancouver, so it seems to me that would rule out some of these possibilities."
"The balloon theory for one," Pat murmured.
"Right. Balloons drift as they please and anyway none has been reported. The same is true of airborne mists or floating devices. They would hardly have such a localized effect to begin with; that seems to rule out air or sea propagation, at least in the general sense."
"You mean except for agents coming by air or sea?"
"Exactly! Let's look at the air entry possibilities. The Russian air lines are now running regular over-the-pole flights that land here, but our customs people are quite strict and our mechanics help to service their planes. I doubt if they'd take a chance on bringing in stuff that way."
"What about freighters docking here or in New Westminster?"
"A very good possibility, but here too they have to evade customs and harbor police, and with the occasional seaman jumping ship to claim political asylum, the RCMP must keep a close watch on the movements of the crew. I think we have to rule this out."
"Then the only other way is agents coming overland; but that doesn't make sense," she objected. "Why would they come all the way out west, or if they sneaked in from Mexico, why start the epidemic up here in the north where we are so much stricter?"
"I don't believe these agents came by land, for the reasons you've mentioned. I believe they come in by sea."
"You mean by submarine?"
"No, although that would seem likely at first thought. There have been too many reports, in the last few years, of unidentified submarines off the coast. The Royal Canadian Navy and the United States Coastguard and Navy are watching all the time. It would be too big a risk." I stopped for emphasis. "You must remember Dr. Hallam's second postulate. The first was that this is a war. The second, that it is a hidden war. The presence of submarines along the coast would almost certainly cause suspicion ... and that must not be, if the war is to succeed."
"Then I give up, John. How else could it be done?"
"By deep sea fishing boats."
"You mean Russian ships?"
"No, that would be obvious."
"Gracious, John, you are being obscure," she complained. "Then they must be communist Chinese."
"Wrong again! Still too obvious; and with the measlepox raising Hell in China we wouldn't let any Chinese boat near the coast right now."
"For Goodness sake, stop being so mysterious. You sound like a murder mystery where the hero turns out to be the murderer."
"Not that either," I smiled and patted her silky knee.
She laid her head on my shoulder and sighed. "Sometimes, darling, I just give up on you. I'd be real annoyed if you weren't so sweet."
"All right, I'll tell you. It's Japanese fishing boats."
She lifted her head again to look at me in amazement. "Japanese! You mean the Japs are helping the Russians?"
"No, I mean the Russians are using Japs."
"Dear Lord," she murmured, "the man's gone nuts." She turned to face me. "And you were accusing the Chief of being fantastic."
"The whole thing is fantastic, but if we start by believing Dr. Hallam's assumption, incredible though it may seem, then we arrive, by elimination, at the solution I've just stated."
"You may have arrived," she said. "I haven't even started."
I butted my cigarette and threw it out. "Here's how it works," I said.
"We always think of the Russians as coming from Europe and of Russian agents approaching from the Atlantic side. That was largely the case until World War II, at least until the end of that war, when the Soviets moved out of Siberia and took over some of the old Japanese territory in Manchuria. Since then, as you probably know, they've really developed their naval bases on the North Pacific. Also, on the civilian side, they have developed a strong interest in the fisheries of the Aleutian area and they take part in the international agreements that control the salmon, halibut and other fishing in the North Pacific, as well as the fur seal trade. The result is that boats of all four nations, Soviet, Japanese, Canadian and American, plus some others, move freely about the waters of the North Pacific and along the shores of Alaska and British Columbia. As long as they abide by the Fisheries Commission regulations and stay out of territorial waters, they are free to move about pretty much as they please. That means that a fishing boat, or a floating cannery, could be out there right now, ostensibly looking for salmon, or tuna, or whatever is in season, and nobody would pay much attention to it among all the others. This coast is still wild and relatively unpopulated. I believe such a ship could creep in at night, close to shore, especially in a fog. The radar screens would have a hard time picking it out among these islands, especially if it had anti-radar devices. It would be a relatively easy matter to put a few men ashore from a fast motor boat almost anywhere around here."
"Where do the Japs come in?"
"That's the beauty of the whole idea. When I was in Hokkaido with the Japanese Defense Force, during the Korean War, I used to visit their defense positions in sight of the Kurile Islands and Sakhalin ... the Japs called it Karafuto. The officers, many of whom had served in the Imperial Japanese Army, used to tell me about doing garrison duty there on Sakhalin before the Second World War, when the southern half was Japanese and the northern half Russian. They told me that many Japanese fishermen stayed behind when the islands were evacuated in 1945. What could be easier than to equip a ship and man it with an experienced communist Japanese crew?"
"You mean that ship that almost ran us down?"
"Yes, I do. That ship was flying the Japanese flag. The crew talked Japanese ... but the man I saw looking over the stern at me was a Slav. Even if the ship got picked up they could claim Japanese origin and would be accused only of poaching on restricted fishing grounds, which happens all the time. Any Slavs aboard could pass as White Russians, residents of Japan, with forged papers."
"I remember that white man too," Pat said. "I got a glimpse of him just before the stern wash knocked me flat." She paused. "But surely you don't expect to go out and find that ship tonight?"
"No, I don't," I said thoughtfully. "The epidemic has been moving slowly inland and south. Dr. Hallam suggested that agents must have started it in the Interior of B.C., because of its explosive character. That makes sense, because they would want to get it started across the mountain barriers and the sparsely settled areas, so that the whole of North America would be affected: but they would still have to come back to the coast for supplies, and they probably arrange to do that when the satellite long-range forecast says fog conditions are likely. Then, too, this is the last night before the curfew and they can still move freely. However, I'm afraid they are almost finished in this part of the world and will probably move on. I hope to see some evidence of them out at Horseshoe Bay. It's a wild chance," I concluded lamely, "like trying to throw boxcars in a crap game; but what else can I do?"
"What are boxcars?" she said.
"Double sixes ... and an outside chance."
"It isn't even an outside chance," she argued. "Suppose you guess right and this is a good night for it, what makes you think out of all this long coastline they would pick Horseshoe Bay? I'd think a lonelier spot more likely. Why not between here and Squamish on the new highway, or farther south or north?"
"In the far north there are few roads. Closer to Vancouver the coast road has ferry crossings in it that would be time consuming and also, on a small ferry, strangers might be noticed more, coming and going. The same applies to the Vancouver-Squamish highway. A car parked along that road might attract attention and the little hamlets where they could land are too small for them to pass unnoticed. South of Horseshoe Bay are the busy shipping lanes and then the United States border country, so, to me, Horseshoe Bay seems the best bet. It's big enough that people come and go in their boats, even this late in the year, and don't attract too much attention. Cars are often left parked in the lots while the owners go fishing up the coast or visit their cottages for a weekend. Also, the floating docks for the small boats are beside the main jetty where we can see whoever passes, while we sit in our parked car. And there are a few lights, enough that we can see them without drawing attention to ourselves."
"You have it figured, don't you?" Pat yawned, but the yawn was more excitement than boredom.
"Yeah," I muttered, "but who knows how a communist thinks?"
It was about one-fifteen when we rode down the steep incline to the Bay and, after circling about the little beach park to look around, pulled in not far from the restaurant where the first dock light illuminated a small circle in the fog. We were far enough away under the trees to be safe, and, with the windows up, in that light, it isn't easy to see into a Ferguson anyway.
"Better not smoke," I said. "We can pretend we are here on a necking party."
"No pretense needed," Pat chuckled, and gave me a hug that nearly pulled off my right ear.
A heavy dig in the ribs jerked open my eyes and I came back out of my doze in a hurry.
"I hear somebody coming," Pat was whispering.
There had been a few late comers pass by, either to or from the dock, but all of them were obviously families, or couples, or fishermen. At any rate, nobody like our thickset friend had appeared in the hour past. Cuddling up to Pat's sweet-scented warmth, I'd fallen asleep in a matter of seconds. I could hear footsteps now, of several people, and shortly three men passed close by the car, going towards the water. One was tall and thin. He was wearing the heavy Squamish Indian sweater, made of unbleached wool, so popular with fishermen, a battered fedora and heavy work pants. As he passed he was speaking English with a slight European accent. The second man, of average height, wore an old dark windbreaker and slacks. His face, like that of the first man, was shaded by the hat he wore, a long peaked baseball cap. The third man was short but very strong looking. His head was bare, and, as they passed under the light, I saw a crop of close-cut, light-colored hair, and that unmistakable heavily boned face that had come so close to me out on the Straits. All three were carrying ruck-sacks over their shoulders. It was a clever disguise. They looked like campers, or perhaps transient workers, on the move from one lumber camp to another. Even their accents would be no hindrance with the country full of D.P.'s since the war.
"That's the man, John, the short one." Pat was pulling feverishly at my sleeve. "It's the same guy, I'm positive."
My heart was settling down after its first great leap, but my throat still felt like the ostrich who swallowed the grapefruit. They had gone on past the shore lamp now, and were almost lost in the darkness and fog of the main pier. I opened the door quietly and stepped out.
Pat grabbed at me. "John, don't be crazy! You can't handle three men alone."
"I don't intend to," I whispered, "but I've got to stop them somehow. We may never get another chance. They must be about through around here."
I broke loose and moved down the gravel road on to the wooden platform. I hadn't the faintest idea of what I was going to do. There wouldn't be time to call the police, and, even if I did, it might not do much good. Nobody outside of the Civic Hospital knew about the biological warfare theory. If I got involved in an argument I might end up in the police station, probably get the flu, and not be able to prove a thing. No, I'd have to handle this myself, play it strictly by ear and wait for the breaks.
The men were busy now over the canvas cover and mooring ropes of a fast-looking pleasure cruiser tied alongside the big jetty, with its bow to the open sea. There were hundreds like it on these waters and it would attract little attention. The short man was directing operations from the dock and his speech was perfect, colloquial American, from somewhere in the Northern United States or Canada.
"This one is probably the leader," I thought. "With an accent like that he could cross the border and never be noticed as he moved about the whole Pacific Northwest."
The fog seemed to be lifting in spots. It was getting lighter and a moon halo could be seen through the drifting clouds of mist. The three men were in a hurry. They didn't notice me until I was opposite their boat.
"I'd like to talk to you," I said to yellow-hair, who was bending over a bollard.
He started and straightened up quickly. I saw his head lift a little more as he got a good look at me.
"I'm busy; what do you want?" he grunted.
"I want something done about the damage to my boat," I said loudly.
The other two had stopped to watch me. At a nod from the leader, the second man went on getting the boat ready. The tall man stepped from the bow on to the main dock so he now stood a little behind yellow-hair and off towards the middle of the dock. I still had a clear line of retreat, but I didn't care for the setup; it isn't good tactics to be out-flanked.
"I don't know what you are talking about." He had made the obvious answer.
"You know damn well," I said hotly. "You were on that Jap fishing boat that ran me down in the Straits of Georgia."
"You are mistaken. I know nothing about it." He turned away from me to get back to the mooring rope. I grabbed at his left arm. I think he was expecting it. He spun around with my pull, his right hand coming up and over, fast, for my head. I let go his arm and swayed to the right, hoping he wouldn't be too quick with a left hook. As his fist went by my neck I stepped across in front of him with my right foot, swung my backside hard into him and whipped downwards, using his right coat sleeve as a lever. His forward rush lifted him and he went over my back, high and fast, in the Judo version of the flying mare. I heard the gasp and the thud as his breath was driven out of him by the fall. Still crouching, I spun around, and, as I had hoped, the Russian bean pole was coming for me, hands out to shove me over the edge. It was simple. As he came in I fell back, gripping his arms, while my feet found his belly. He rocked over like a seesaw and I shoved up strongly with my legs to flip him. The Japs had clobbered me with that trick so often in the Judo classes that I had it down pat. This fellow really sailed. I heard his feet hit the water, but the splash was drowned out by the harsh aa ... h of his scream when the small of his back smashed down on the edge of the dock.
"One down, two to go," I was thinking as I scrambled to my feet; but I had slowed down since the war. Too late, I saw that familiar thick shape above me, silhouetted against the clearing sky. In his upraised hand there was something round and black. Once again I glimpsed that dull red sparkle of the ring in the now bright moon.
"This proves it," I thought, so I lunged forward desperately, tackling him at the knees. Then the side of my head split and I dropped.
Dimly I heard a high-pitched screaming. I wasn't out cold; I could see but I couldn't seem to get up enough steam to move.
"That damn Russian surely is noisy," I thought dully. I looked up from my knees. Yellow-hair was on his feet again and he and the second man were scrabbling frantically over the side of the boat, dragging the tall man by the shoulders. I heard him groan, "Nyet, nyet!" as they tumbled him into the cockpit, limp as a pithed frog, and started the motor. I suppose the shock of the broken back had cut through the long indoctrination in the English language he must have had, for that was the first and last word of Russian I heard. The screaming kept up and then I realized it wasn't the injured man, but Pat, who had followed me down to the water. Being a really smart girl, she hadn't tried any heroics and had stayed too far from the fight to be caught, so, realizing that they couldn't dispose of the evidence, namely me, without a witness, the Russkis abandoned all pretense in a desperate scramble for safety in the fog that still blocked the harbor entrance. The cruiser foamed away from the dock with a deep roar, rocking the boats down the line of buoys.
The moment they were safely away, Pat was down on the planks, running wildly towards me. As she came close, she stubbed her foot on that same black cylinder that had downed me, and sent it rolling. She reached down and began tugging at my arms to lift me.
"Wait! Where's that thing? It may be evidence," I cried out, my head clearing fast.
"Oh come on! We must get out of here. Quick!" Pat was pulling at me as she spoke. "We can't afford to stay here and explain this to the police. They'd hold us for questioning and we mustn't risk any more exposure to the virus."
"The hell with the virus," I moaned as I stumbled along the deck, looking for the black cylinder. "Get the car started. I'm coming."
She turned and ran and, a moment later, with the cylinder in my pocket, I followed her. The Ferguson was already roaring as I jumped in beside Pat. She stamped on the accelerator and we went out of there and up the hill in a tire-ripping start that almost broke my neck. The engine has never been the same since.
The ride back was a painful haze. Every bump accentuated the throbbing in my head. Pat, grimly intent on getting well away from the area, held the pedal down as hard as she dared and the Ferguson whipped around the curves, its independently driven wheels screeching and scraping against the asphalt like the claws of a frightened dog on a waxed floor. The fog was gone except for little patches drifting down the gullies or hanging in dead air pockets between the hills. We reached a more brightly lit area and she slowed down. There was no pursuit.
We went back up the stairs of the Lab and into the showers. I felt safe again like a wounded rabbit diving into its burrow. She helped me strip and, kneeling beside me, held me in her arms as I sat under the spray. The soft fullness of her breasts and arms, dripping with the cool water, made a nest of peace and comfort. For a long minute I let go and retreated back to childhood and the contentment of a mother's arms.
"My poor darling," she crooned, and rocked me gently, her slender hands smoothing my hair and caressing my face.
Suddenly I struggled to my feet and, slopping water over the floor, lurched back into the anteroom.
"The cylinder! I forgot the cylinder," I groaned, and flung open the door of the supersonic cabinet. The warning buzzer stopped. I fumbled agitatedly in the pocket of my windbreaker and drew out the thing that had hit me. For the first time I really looked at it. It was like an old-fashioned army aerosol bomb with a trigger mechanism on one end. I slammed shut the cabinet; the buzzer and warning light went on again.
Pat stood beside me anxiously, dripping heedlessly on the floor rug. "What was it, darling?"
"This thing," I held it out to show her. "There might be virus in it and I put it in the supersonic cabinet, like a damn fool."
"What will that do to it?"
"I don't know for sure. Ultra-sound kills some organisms. Maybe it will be all right. It wasn't in there long." My stomach began to churn and I leaned on her weakly. "Oh, my head," I moaned. "I feel sick."
She put her arm around me and led me back to the showers. I sat down again, dropping under the spray, until the nausea had passed. Then I raised my head. "We've got to get this aerosol bomb to the culture room and start making tests. Hand me the soap darling."
Silently she reached it to me. I soaped the cylinder carefully, trying to sterilize it at least in part; then, after washing myself, I rinsed it off thoroughly. A few minutes later, in clean whites, we entered the living room. I slumped into a chair, elbows on the dining table, my head in my hands. Quietly efficient, Pat handed me two aspirin and codeine tablets for my pain and dialled strong coffee into a cup. She put in cream and sugar and pushed it over to me.
Hallam came in, in his pajamas. A light sleeper, he must have been disturbed by my heavy-footed entrance. He looked at us and his eyes puckered as he tried to see clearly without his glasses.
"John's been hurt, sir, but not badly," Pat said swiftly. "He'll tell you all about it in a minute. Let him recover a bit."
Without a word the Chief went to his room and came back. He had added a gown and glasses to his pajamas. He walked over to me and I showed him the goose egg on my head. He checked it and then looked at my eyes. Satisfied, he said his first words.
"Were you knocked out?"
"No sir, just dizzy. I think I'll be all right soon."
"Well, you know what to do. Let me know if you need help."
"I will."
He took the coffee Pat handed him and sat down opposite me.
"The bomb, Pat," I said. "You'd better take it now and get some cultures going." I took it out of my pocket and handed it to her. She reached for it and I thought she had it and let go. She fumbled.
"Watch out!" I shouted in alarm, and grabbed for it.
Either I startled her and she triggered it or my own hand struck the release. It doesn't matter now. A thin white stream of gas hissed out of the end and hit me squarely in the mouth. Pat stood there, rigid, the cursed thing still in her hands, and slowly her lips began to quiver and a big tear formed in the corner of her right eye.