Noah's Ark: Contagion (14 page)

“Let me get this straight,” Coote said. “You think the girl caught the flu, got over it, but the virus in her body somehow spontaneously mutated and turned into something nasty that then killed her father?”

“That’s more or less it, yes.”

“I don’t understand.” Jake was drumming his fingers on the work bench, frowning. “If it mutated, that means it’s a different virus now, right?”

“Right,” Vardy nodded.

“So why isn’t she sick with this new virus?”

“Because her immune system already learnt to fight the flu virus that this is based on. The new virus has enough similarities that her body’s defences can fight it off. They already learnt how when it was just a simple influenza.”

“Is there something special about her? Something that made this mutation happen?”

“No, I don’t think so. I have a theory about that too, though.”

“Go on?”

“Jake, when you were at Longyearbyen, you lost people to the toxic ash?”

“Yes. It sort of…ate them. Dissolved them. You’ve seen Dante’s hands, you saw what it did.”

“Yes. And now I think that Erica came into contact with the ash, and that it is that ash which has mutated her flu virus.”

“This is all well and good,” Coote said, growing impatient, “but how does it help? Can you cure it, is what I want to know?”

Vardy looked at the two captains and weighed his words before speaking, as if he didn’t want to create false hope, but at the same time was eager to share an idea. “I think we can fabricate a vaccine.”

“You think?”

“Erica’s flu virus is a common kind. We have vaccine kits on board the
Ambush
, normal operating procedure; we can’t risk an outbreak of anything contagious in a confined space. The kits contains a flu jab that can easily take on Erica’s mild virus. My theory is that if we can combine the vaccine with some of that toxic ash, we could create something that will tackle the new virus.”

“You mean you want to mutate the vaccine, like the ash mutated the flu?” Jake asked.

“Yes, essentially. There’s a bit more to it than that, but yes, that’s the idea.”

“Do it,” Coote said simply.

“Ah, and therein lies the problem. We don’t have everything we need.”

“You just said we have the vaccine kit?”

“He means the ash, don’t you, Russell?” Jake’s face fell. “We have to go and try and collect some of that ash and bring it back here.”

“It’s more complicated even than that. I can’t just throw the vaccine and the ash into a test tube and wait for them to do their thing; they have to be combined in a certain way. There’s a machine that can do it. We don’t have one, but there is one at Faslane. At least, there was. I don’t know if it’s still there. It was all a bit hush-hush. You see, it was in the biological warfare lab.”

“How do you know about that lab?” Coote snorted. “That’s highly classified. Officially it doesn’t even exist!”
 

“I was seconded there for six months a few years back. Sorry, it’s not on my record, it showed up as shore leave. Like you said, officially it doesn’t exist.”

Fifteen

A
N
EFFORT
WAS
made to arrange a committee meeting, but the idea was quickly abandoned. Ella Rose, Amanda Jackson, and Grau were all down with the virus. Lucya was on the bridge, accompanied by Erica, and Max hadn’t been seen by anyone. Jake and Coote understood full well that the responsibility for decision making was now theirs alone.

Whilst Coote remained on the
Ambush
and briefed his men on what was to be done, Jake brought his own bridge crew up to date with the developments. Martin had been called to the bridge too; his team had an important role to play.

“Disconnecting the
Ambush
isn’t just a case of pulling out the plug, Jake,” he said, a look of concern crossing his face. “There’s rather more to it than that. I mean, the diesel generator has been off line for about ten days; we don’t even know if we can start it. And even if we can, there’s at least half a day’s work to get it connected back up to the electrical system. When we wired ourselves up to the sub it was a rush job.”

“You told me that we’d be able to use our own power in case of emergency,” Jake said, agitated. He knew how touchy his chief engineer could be when others questioned anything technical.

“That’s the plan, Jake, the future plan. We’re not there yet. We’ve had other things on our plate, like getting the shared navigation systems working. Until then we’re totally reliant on their nuclear reactor. If they want to dive and try and enter this underwater base of theirs, we’re going to have to pull out the lines and go cold for as long as they are away.”

“Half the ship is down with this virus, and we’ve got no food. Jake, if we cut the power, we could have a riot on our hands!” Lucya said.

Jake paced around the map table, both hands on top of his head, fingers interlinked. “And if we don’t disconnect,” he said, “we’re as good as dead. This isn’t a choice, it’s not something we are debating. We have to enter that base if we want to beat this virus, you understand? The equipment we need is in there, and the entrance is underwater. Martin, liaise with the
Ambush
and get us cut off. I’ll make the call, let the ship know what’s happening.”

• • •

“Mummy, why are the lights off?”

“You heard the captain, Chloe. The submarine that makes all the electricity is going away for a bit. Only a little while.” Martine tried to speak as naturally as possible. She didn’t want her children to see how much pain she was in.

“Don’t they like us any more?”

“Of course they like us, darling. But they need to go and get some medicine, to help Mummy get better, and the other people who are sick too.”

“Cool! Can we go with them? I wanna go in the submarine!” Oliver leapt onto the bed, his expression bright and full of life.

“Me too! Oh, but we have to stay and look after Mummy.” Chloe’s face fell.

“They don’t have space for passengers on the submarine. But when they are back, and everyone is better, we’ll ask the captain if you can visit, okay?”

“Yay! Thanks Mum!” Oliver leapt off the bed and proceeded to pretend he was under the water, exploring the sea bed and scaring the fish.

“I’m hungry, Mummy. When are we going to get some food?”

“When they come back with the medicine. Then you can go to the restaurant.”

“But I want to go now! I’m starving.”

“Me too!” Oliver popped his head above the level of the bed on which his mother and sister were lying.

“It’s better you two stay here. If you go out there, there’s more chance you’ll get sick like me. Besides, Mummy needs you. You have to look after me, okay?”

“Okaaaay, but if I don’t eat soon, it won’t matter about being ill because I’ll already be dead from hunger!”

• • •

“How long have they been gone?” Lucya asked.

“It’s been almost an hour,” Jake said, checking his watch.

“That’s good, right? I mean, we haven’t heard anything, so they must be in the base. That’s good,” she repeated, trying to convince herself as much as anyone.

“I hope so, I really do.” Jake took her to one side and lowered his voice to a whisper. “When are we going to tell her about her father? She has to know, she’s only going to keep asking to see him.” He peered over Lucya’s shoulder. He could see Erica talking to Chuck. He had sat her in the captain’s chair and was showing her what some of the controls were for.

“I don’t know, Jake, how do we even tell her a thing like that? She seems happy. It’s going to tear her world apart when she finds out. I don’t know if I can do that to her! Wouldn’t it be better to wait, until, you know…” she left the words hanging in the air.

“You want to wait until she gets sick? Lucya, that’s hardly the time to tell her!”

“No, but maybe, if she’s sick, she won’t be thinking about him. We might never have to tell her at all.”

Jake looked incredulous. “You’re hoping she’ll die? That she’ll never find out? How can you be so cruel?”

“Is it cruel, Jake? Look at her! She’s enjoying herself. Is it so bad if she spends her last days or hours believing her father is being looked after? Surely that’s better than spending them mourning him?”

Jake was lost for words. He couldn’t fault Lucya’s logic, yet there seemed something terribly wrong about hiding the truth from the child.

“If Vardy is right, if he makes a vaccine and it works, then we tell her, what do you say, Jake? But not before. It just doesn’t seem fair.”

“If the vaccine works, it’s going to hit her even harder. She might be young, but she’s a bright kid. When she sees others getting better, or rather,
if
she sees them getting better, then she’s going to want to know why her dad isn’t better too.”

Lucya said nothing, but she didn’t need to, Jake could read her thoughts in her eyes. He looked at the girl again. She was laughing and smiling. In any other circumstances it would have been a pleasure to watch her, he thought. But this still seemed wrong to him. “As soon as the vaccine shows the first sign of working, we tell her. I’ll do it; it’s my duty as captain.”

Lucya opened her mouth to speak, but she was cut off by the radio crackling into life.

“
Spirit of Arcadia
,
Ambush
, do you copy?”

She lifted her headset into place hastily. “
Ambush
,
Spirit of Arcadia
, loud and clear.”

“We are aborting the mission. I repeat, aborting the mission. We will be surfacing shortly. Suggest you standby to reconnect your systems as soon as we are back. It must be getting cold up there.”

“He’s not wrong about that,” Jake said, shivering.

• • •

Captain Coote wasted no time in coming aboard the cruiser as soon as the walkway was reinstated. By the time he had reached the bridge the electrical connections were still being made and only the most essential systems remained powered up, running on the emergency backup batteries.

“Jake,” he said solemnly in greeting. He nodded curtly to Lucya and the others on the bridge.
 

“What happened?” Jake asked. “Is the base destroyed?”

“No. Or rather, not in as much as we can tell. The problem is one of access. The deep-water dock is protected by a gate. We don’t want all and sundry waltzing into our bases, you know. The
Ambush
and her sister ships transmit a coded signal when approaching the base. The gate should automatically open when the signal is in close proximity, but that has not happened.”

“Because there’s no power to the base?”

“That is the most likely explanation, yes. There should be an emergency battery backup system for the submarine entrance though. There were generators too, but those were housed on the surface. All gone now.”

“If the battery backup isn’t working, doesn’t that suggest serious damage to the base?” Lucya asked.

“That is a possibility. Quite likely, even. But there are other possibilities. The backup system could have been switched off prior to the asteroid, as a safety precaution.”

“Isn’t there some way to override the system? Can’t you send a diver to open the door manually?”

“This isn’t like a garage door, old boy, it’s a hefty piece of kit. High security, designed to withstand a direct hit by a torpedo. Even a team of divers wouldn’t be able to move it.”

“So we’re screwed? If there’s no way in, Vardy can’t get his machine!”

“Well, we are not entirely lost. There is another way in. That gate is the entrance for submarines, but the people who worked in the base had their own access. The Admiralty may have many faults, but they don’t expect everyone to swim to work, you know.”

“Why didn’t we try that first then? Why cut off our power supply by trying to get the
Ambush
in there if you could just go in through the front door?”

“Calm down, old chap,” Coote said softly. “As with every aspect of this mission, it is not that simple. For one thing, the entrance is on the base, the base which as we have all seen, has been flattened and is now covered in toxic ash. And for another thing, the entrance, if it remains intact, is a high-security affair. It is, however, easier to penetrate than the deep-water gate.”

“So we need a landing party?”

“Indeed we do. A small team of my men are preparing themselves right now. We are going to need some additional supplies though, in order to safely traverse this bothersome ash.”

“Such as?”

“We require diving gear. Specifically, neoprene diving gear. Vardy thinks it will provide protection against the corrosive qualities of the toxic ash.”

“Thinks? He isn’t sure?” Jake looked worried. He’d seen first-hand the horrible and painful effects the asteroid ash could inflict. Anything less than certainty seemed to him a risk too far.

“He’s fairly sure. There’s only one way to find out though! We have a couple of wetsuits on the
Ambush
, diving kit used for emergency hull maintenance. More would be helpful. I assume a ship like this must have some scuba enthusiasts on board?”

“Usually, yes,” Jake agreed. “But this was an Arctic cruise. We mostly see divers on the Caribbean cruises. I’ll see what we can do.”

“I’m on it,” Lucya said, pleased to have something useful to do. “The census will help; I’ve seen diving listed as a hobby on those forms.”

“They do need to be neoprene!” Coote reminded her as she left the bridge. “We’ll be needing that raft we picked up too, in the absence of anything more substantial. It should be sufficient to get three men over there.”

“Three?”

“I’m sending Eric and Ewan; they’ll get the door open. Vardy has to go as well; he’s the only one who knows where the lab is and what his machine looks like.”

“I’m going too.” The words burst out of Jake’s mouth even before he realised he had spoken them.

Coote raised his eyebrows.

“I know it makes no sense,” Jake said quickly. “I know my place is here on the ship, but I have to do something. Besides, someone from the committee should be part of the landing party. Lucya needs to look after Erica, you’re too important to the
Ambush
to go, and the others are all sick.” He knew his reasoning was weak, but he was determined to be part of the team. Clearly his commitment was evident, as Coote made no attempt to argue.