Panspermia Deorum (38 page)

Eugene was
asked once more if he would sign the pledge to remain silent with
respect to the entire programme of containing the virus. He
remained steadfast.

“This isn’t
about me, you are deluding yourselves that you still have some
control in this situation. It’s gone beyond anything we’ve dealt
with before. Every hurdle we’ve put in its way has been overcome
without any diminution of its potency. This is uncharted territory
and you just won’t accept it. My father has breached your ability
to prevent the outside world from being blindsided with lies. You
won’t be able to maintain your bubble of secrecy much longer. If
you accept that I’m prepared to give verbal assurance that I won’t
personally disclose details of your strategy, tactics, and
censorship of this unmitigated disaster, will you authorise my
departure? The investigation into your failure to deal with this
threat is for the politicians, not me. If you persist with
detaining me without legal justification, my father will ultimately
fry your arses in court. He has the resource, influence and
determination to demolish your huff and puff, and blow your house
down. Don’t ask me to sign any piece of paper which adds to this
flagrant deception of the public and those who are supposed to
represent them. It’s your call.”

“We would ask
you to retire from the chamber so that this issue can be discussed
by the panel. We will consider what you have said and reconvene
tomorrow.”

“Fine. You need
to include the other microbiologists who’ve been prevented from
returning home because they don’t agree with the methodology of
tackling the spread of the virus. You know there is no legality in
holding us against our will. We are all of the same mind insofar as
we can overlook your precipitant action as misjudgement, which you
can claim has since been reviewed and rescinded.”

There was a lot
of whispering and gesticulating as Eugene rose to exit the chamber.
His reading of the body language persuaded him to call their bluff
again.

“You said we
would reconvene tomorrow. I’m afraid that isn’t good enough. You
really ought to bring my colleagues to the chamber now. We can wait
outside until you are ready to hear the form of words we can offer
to assuage your concern that we’ll be publicly critical of your
handling of this operation in Australia.”

More huddles
and jabbering preceded agreement that the other microbiologists
should be summoned.

*

Brinkmanship
prevailed as Lydia climbed into the passenger seat of the SUV. They
sped along the primitive dirt track road, continually scanning the
landscape. Cresting a rise, they were confronted with another
vehicle. It was stationary and skewed across the track. It appeared
to be abandoned. Zlatan left the SUV engine running as they
approached the other vehicle. There was no one inside, no signs of
an impact, and the keys were still in the ignition. Lydia tugged at
Zlatan’s arm.

“There’s a body
in the scrub over by those bushes.”

“I see it. I’ll
check it out, you get the keys from the SUV.”

Zlatan’s
stealthy approach to the body came to a halt. It was the upper half
of a human. He ran back to the SUV and grabbed the shotgun. Lydia
declined to inspect the remains but Zlatan insisted that she stayed
close to him. A sixth sense prodded him and he began to scan the
entire three hundred and sixty degrees of the horizon. Each clump
of bushes was assessed as he turned slowly in a clockwise
direction. Suddenly he paused.

“Lydia, check
that group of bushes over there, do you see anything? Don’t hover,
just keep scanning and coming back to it.”

“It looks
hot.”

“Right. There’s
someone in there. Stay close.”

“Let’s just
leave.”

“No, there’s
something strange about the heat signature.”

They carefully
circled towards the target, the gun was cocked and ready for use.
They were both breathing heavily in the direct rays of the breaking
dawn. In a microsecond a massive adult kangaroo bounded from its
cover at incredible speed. Zlatan only had time to swing the
shotgun up to his hip, by which time the marsupial was almost upon
them. Lydia screamed involuntarily as the shotgun discharged its
power. It blew most of the abdomen of the creature into the dust.
The stricken kangaroo’s death throes echoed eerily in their ears.
They backed off a few yards, spattered with blood, but able to meet
the pleading eyes of the victim.

“Lydia, we must
have disturbed this kangaroo while it fed on the poor bastard from
the abandoned vehicle. It had a similar heat signature as an
infected human, but not the same. Let’s get out of here in case
there are more of them. This situation is worse than I thought it
was.”

They scurried
back to the SUV and screeched past the abandoned car, leaving a
billowing dust cloud in their wake.

E
ven though Julien hadn’t given up hope, he was quite
surprised that the call from Brandon Mitchell came within three
days rather than a week.

“Ok, Mr
Delacroix. You said you knew very little about the situation in
Australia. More to the point, you never mentioned Japan in your
call. As you may know, because you were in Osaka a few years ago,
there are numerous Australians here as residents and students, and
even more Japanese in Australia, as residents and citizens. I have
a good job in this country and I don’t want it screwed up. I’m
willing to speak with your son on my terms, the first of which is
that you are the conduit. Secondly, and you can pass this on to
him, he should try to find out more about this virus before we
engage in any dialogue. A clue – there are a small number of
returning students in Japan infected with this same virus. The
authorities, as much as they can, are playing down fears of a
pandemic. It sounds to me like they are following the example set
by this multi-national task force in Australia. I haven’t yet been
allowed to examine any of the infected people, but from what I’ve
heard through the grapevine, it is a completely different type of
virus to anything we’ve ever seen on this planet. I share your
son’s concern, but what can be done about it is not clear. When he
returns to Lyon you can call me back on this number. That’s the
best I can do for now.”

“Thank you,
Brandon. There seems to be an implication that this virus is
already jumping continents as well as species. I’ll certainly
contact you as soon as Eugene gets back.”

*

Eugene was
released with his friends and was reunited with his phone.

“Hi, Dad, I’m
ready to head back now. I need to check the flights and then I’ll
let you know my arrival time.”

“Can you talk
this time?”

“Yes, there
were a number of difficulties last time we spoke, but all is well
now. I’m on my way to the airport. So, I’ll call you again from
there.”

The line went
dead and Julien’s instinct was that there was still something
wrong. He had wanted to tell Eugene about finding Brandon Mitchell,
but never got the chance. He was tempted to call him right back but
then realised when he took the first call, Eugene’s name flashed
up. So it was his mobile. He would wait for his son to call
again.

*

The two
fugitives at last found a ravine into which they could dispose of
the car. It was deep and yet had lots of verdant growth at the
bottom. They put the SUV in neutral and took off the handbrake,
then pushed it as hard as they could until it gathered its own
momentum. They heard it bounce off the nearside of the gorge a
couple of times and then they peered over the edge. To their relief
it couldn’t be seen.

“What do we do
now?” asked Lydia.

“Eat.”

“I told you,
I’m not eating that man.”

“Fine, leave
him to me then.”

She sat
watching Zlatan with horror. The sight of him salivating began to
affect her digestive juices. It was a completely involuntary
reaction and she started to peel the skin from the dog, made easier
with a hacksaw blade from the toolbox of the now defunct SUV.

“We must take
only the most essential tools with us and then throw the box into
the ravine.”

“Whatever you
say, Zlatan. Where exactly are we going?”

“We’ll know
when we get there. It would be really helpful if we could find
refuge with another Beta. Of course it would only be temporary if
they were in phase two. That would mean one of us would need to
become dominant, you or me, and at least one Beta out of the three
would die. But the reward might be safety for a few days or maybe a
week. Let’s get back to the track but be ready to take cover at all
times.”

“What about
these… these corpses?”

“If you can’t
eat any more we have to throw them into the ravine. They’re too
heavy to carry and anyway, we must avoid being seen with raw meat.
It’s a pity, because we could have sliced off enough to keep us
going for a couple of days.”

*

Brandon
Mitchell’s account of Homo Diversitus having been identified in
Japan was not a one-off event. Air travel, being perceived as such
a necessity for mankind, had laid ‘eggs’ all over the planet. Some
died suddenly, some incubated longer than others, but some eluded
capture until they killed and became bolder, hunting in urban and
suburban territory. Graphic reports of the police bringing down
cannibals in broad daylight were much more difficult to suppress
than similar happenings in the outback. The eventual acceptance
that cities offered much more effective breeding grounds for the
virus fuelled anger and protest. It should have come as no surprise
that those who’d crossed over would seek out safe havens in
ghettos, social dropout enclaves, camps for the homeless, and no-go
areas in general. Homo Sapiens had missed a trick. Homo Diversitus
had announced its fight to survive.

*

Julien was
greatly relieved to see his son making his way through the throng
of passengers in arrivals. He was quite tearful as he embraced
Eugene.

“Let’s find a
quiet spot and share what we know over a coffee.”

“Ok, Dad, lead
on and I’ll follow. I suppose it’s better if we don’t talk about
this back home, well your home, as I don’t yet have one.”

“That’s not
exactly what I meant. The virus situation is pretty much on
everyone’s lips right now. Anyway, we have a responsibility to keep
the family up to speed with the precautions we all have to take to
avoid infection, and those recommendations may change over time. I
was actually referring to your struggle to get here. That’s in the
past but are you able to tell me more?”

“You may have
guessed, as I implied on the phone, I gave verbal assurance that I
wouldn’t disclose any information which would point the finger of
accusation at the Australian strategy in handling the viral threat.
It was no big deal because I knew their failure would eventually
come out from elsewhere anyway.”

“It’s become a
lot worse than that. You’ve been sheltered from the global
situation while you were in the outback. I made delicate enquiries
via people I knew from the time when I was tackling the asteroid.
It appears it’s already too late to keep the lid on public reaction
and panic. Just about every civilised country has reported cases of
infection. This may not have been the case if warnings had been
issued from Australia earlier on the ways in which the virus could
spread. People automatically think that avoiding contact with
others would limit the risk, but nobody was told that eating fresh
imported vegetables was a clear and omnipresent danger. Anyway,
what’s done is done. We have to call Brandon Mitchell, so we’re
having this coffee to see if you are being followed. You were
prevented from leaving Australia when you decided you’d had enough,
but are you sure it was only about keeping public hysteria and
outright panic to the absolute minimum?”

“Yes. What else
could it be?”

“Is there no
possibility that some of those in command out there weren’t as
incompetent as they seemed to be? Could they have been among the
first to be infected?”

“I doubt it,
because…oh shit, I see what you’re getting at. There was indeed
zero tolerance of any leaking of information that those infected
could visually recognise others in the same condition, and that
clean subjects cannot. That edict was issued from the very top
without any discussion or consensus.”

“Well then, it
is certainly something we have to bear in mind, starting now. Here
are my car keys, it’s parked at a gas station. We’ll take a taxi
together and stop for fuel at my regular station to fill up. You go
to pay inside and I use the toilet. There’s a rear door to the left
of the pay point, and my car is out back. It has blacked out
windows, so just drive slowly to the motel I’ve scribbled on this
note and I’ll meet you there later. When I return from the toilet,
hopefully any tail will follow the taxi to my apartment. Within an
hour of getting back home, I’ll call your motel from a public phone
and we can arrange to speak with Brandon from there.”

“What did he
say when you spoke with him?”

“He wasn’t
inclined to speak with you, but he told me he wasn’t allowed to
examine infected Japanese people returning from Australia. After
some consideration he said he would talk with you through me. I
think this is only an initial precaution for him to feel
comfortable with the situation. I guess he might think that every
mistake involved with this virus originated from the outback,
including suppression of the truth. If that is the case, he would
have justification in seeing you as part of the problem. I think I
convinced him of the opposite, but we have to tread carefully.”

A
fter the family reunion and fielding as many
questions as he could, Eugene explained that he and his father had
to make a call. The women retired to Geraldine’s ground floor
apartment to ask Sophie’s advice on new furnishings, including some
pictures.