The Demon Plagues (23 page)

Raphael watched with satisfaction as its
degenerate siblings and their foolish, wasteful proclivities were
annihilated. It looked down with approval as the sentients
repopulated the Earth from the one family to survive, and from time
to time it visited them, scattering knowledge across centuries and
among cultures.

It went by many names; Prometheus, Zeus,
Odin, Shiva, Ra, Quetzalcoatl, even its own. When the humans grew
technologically adept enough to pose a risk to it, Raphael left
them on their own, to watch, cycle after cycle, century after
century, from far above.

Then an unexpected thing occurred. The Level
One computers exhibited a new and until then undiscovered function:
in response to a query, they transmitted an electromagnetic carrier
wave outward, toward a point in deep space beyond this solar
system. All the Level One data that had been gathered throughout
the thousands of cycles was sent, in sustained bursts, endlessly
repeating.

Until an answer came.

The reply contained merely an automated
request for Level Two data, but it encompassed within it a data
field labeled ‘estimated arrival.’

For the first time since it had escaped its
siblings, Raphael knew fear. Ancestors were coming, and it was
certain they would not be pleased with what it had done. From what
it was able to glean from the damaged Level Two and Level Three
data storage cells, favoring another species over one’s own was a
crime punishable by consumption and dissolution.

Raphael did not wish to die, and it had no
illusions about the mercy of the Meme; there would be none. It
therefore resolved to do what it could to help the humans resist
its ancestors, though its resources were limited to a ball of ice,
a damaged base with a smattering of working equipment, one
functioning shuttle…and themost precious thing in the universe:
information.

One watcher, one angel, one god could
accomplish much, if the humans heeded its words. With his influence
– and enough workers – the Pharaohs had built the Pyramids.
Likewise the great empires of South America, the Druids of ancient
Britain, the Rapanui of Easter Island, and a hundred others lost to
time. But Raphael knew it could no longer play god to these people.
Now, it was an extraterrestrial, an
alien
, fraught with all
that word had come to mean in a paranoid age.

***

Aboard the approaching Meme scout ship,
Commander addressed his colleagues, Biologist and Executive. “All
attempts to contact the Watcher base have failed. No Level Two or
Level Three data is available. We must assume an anomalous
catastrophe has overtaken it. We must now implement all infection
protocols ourselves.”

“We are ready to implement the protocols,”
Executive stated formally. Indeed, they had been ready for some
time now. Interstellar travel was a lengthy process, well suited to
the nearly infinite Meme lifespans.

“I give the order. The order is now logged.
Proceed.”

“Launching Level One Phage carrier.
Projectile away.” The missile accelerated at a stupendous rate,
eventually to reach over half the speed of light before turnover
and deceleration to deploy its deadly cargo upon the target
planet.

“Launching Level Two Phage carrier.
Projectile away.” The second missile launched at a slower
acceleration, to arrive at the most effective moment after the
first, based on Biologist’s epidemic models.

“Launching Level Three Phage carrier.
Projectile away.” The third and final missile followed in the wake
of the other two.

“Complete your reports and I will inform the
Destroyer. My estimates predict more than eighty percent
probability of success; however, I am recommending an immediate
preemptive destruction plan be initiated. The sentients’ scientific
and technological achievement progress curve shows acceleration.
They cannot be allowed to spread from their home world. Better to
sterilize the planet and give up a potential colony than face
another Species 447.”

Biologist and Executive shuddered to think of
that debacle. Species 447 had come close to pushing the Meme out of
its own home system; only a total effort by the entire Meme race
and its combined fleet had finally battered them into extinction.
The resource loss had been tremendous, unspeakable. Millions of
ancient Meme had been dissolved; whole genetic lines had been wiped
out. It was the price of victory, but the cost had been high.

***

The first missile arrived in orbit around
Earth unseen, designed as it was with anti-detection features that
easily eluded the haphazard and unprepared planet-based systems. No
nation had ever considered a need to detect probes arriving from
interstellar space. With orbital sensors wiped out by nuclear fire,
nothing impeded its deployment of the first phage.

The living-robot spacecraft decelerated into
orbit and immediately dropped its six packages, deploying them to
maximize coverage and contagion across the six major continental
divisions.

One spewed its deadly cargo along the eastern
seaboard of North America, from Washington, DC up to Boston.
Another overflew the east coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte
to Rio de Janeiro, a third across the great cities of old Europe on
an axis from London to Rome, a fourth from Cairo deep into central
Africa, a fifth over the heart of Russia and the last one over the
massively populated Chinese east coast.

At the end of their runs, each fell to Earth
and burrowed in, pushing up antennas to begin transmitting
intelligence back to the Meme scoutship. Unfortunately for them,
their protocols did not include plans for dealing with a
technologically sophisticated enemy.

National forces of Earth soon found each of
the probes, and they frantically, if carefully, studied the alien
technology, seeking any advantage.

The aerosolized virus fell quietly, softly,
sometimes taking days to settle onto plants, into water, onto
people. Humans ingested and inhaled it. It quickly began to take
effect, inducing a mild, annoying infection. It stimulated the
medulla oblongata in the brains of the infected, and those prone to
violence exercised their propensities more often. Those who were
not became fearful, irritable, paranoid.

Society in the infected areas began to fall
apart.

***

Raphael knew that it must make contact with
the sentients, the
humans
. It regarded them as his
responsibility, ever since it had engineered the salvation of the
one human family from the flood. Thus it was that it prepared the
shuttle for another, perhaps final, trip to the Blue World.

The comet that held the Watcher base flew
outbound beyond the orbit of Saturn. At conservative speeds the
journey took weeks for the shuttle with its lone Meme passenger to
reach inward toward the third planet. Its trip was uneventful until
inside the orbit of Mars, when the shuttle’s sensors reported the
near-simultaneous detonation of almost two hundred atomic weapons
on the Blue World.

Raphael was not immune to the fear that now
gripped its cognitive centers, galvanizing it to focus all
instruments on its intended destination.

It was well aware of the political situation
on the Blue World; it had been reading and viewing every available
public transmission, and many private ones, since the advent of
radio communication. Thus it immediately realized the significance
of the targets of most of the explosions: capitals, high-value
economic areas and military installations of the Big Three, the
superpowers of Earth’s political system.

Those three nations, each accusing the
others, launched a second spate of weapons at each other in
misguided retaliation; almost a hundred more vaporized secondary
targets before cooler heads prevailed.

At the end of this fiasco the New Soviets,
China and North America were superpowers no longer. Convulsed with
chaos, fear and death, their power grids were disrupted or
destroyed; their economies were in ruins, and their leadership was
nearly all dead. Powerful militaries and pervasive local
bureaucracies were all that held their nations together and kept
some semblance of order.

Raphael observed the breakup of empires, each
ethnic region taking control of its own destiny once more. He
watched as Canada and Mexico withdrew from the failed North
American experiment, and Ukraine and the other New Soviet states
declared themselves again independent. China lost Mongolia again as
it turned inward to lick its wounds.

Raphael slowed the inward-spiraling course of
the shuttle, timing its arrival for four weeks. This allowed time
to think, and for the situation to stabilize itself. Now that the
Big Three were merely The Three – Raphael laughed to itself – it
contemplated with whom it would interact. Its experience with
humans over the centuries suggested that it was always best to deal
with one powerful person – an emperor, a god-king, a Pharaoh – not
a committee.

Besides, if the humans were ever to forge a
unity among themselves sufficient to resist the coming assault,
they would need a symbol, a figure around which to rally. There was
only one man on Earth that fit that description.

-31-

Frustrated, Chairman Markis watched the
three commandos leave his office. He turned to Cassandra. “More
questions than answers. What happened to Spooky? Nothing yet?” He
knew she would have told him anything her network had found out,
but couldn’t keep himself from asking.

She shook her head pensively. “Nothing new,
and even if I had any expendable assets, I wouldn’t want to use
them up to answer that question. He knew the risks, he’s a big boy.
You have much more important things to deal with.”

He replied, “I’ve done all I can. I
authorized the operations to liberate as many camps as we could
reach. We’ve set up inoculation clinics wherever we can to save
people from radiation poisoning. The Big Three are on their knees
and we are accepting all the refugees we can handle on the
condition they accept the Plague. The Council and the Neutral
States Assembly are much better at this than I am. All I can do is
herd cats and provide symbolic leadership.” He put his head in his
hands, bone-tired.

Cassandra’s voice was quiet but firm. “That’s
all necessary, but it’s not your primary role. DJ, you need to
start looking to the future. You’re a competent administrator but
what you’re good at is having a vision and communicating it to
people.”

“And what you’re good at is seeing things
clearly and speaking truth to power. Okay, I get it. So what do you
see?”

She pursed her lips. “I see a grand
opportunity. Canada and Mexico just withdrew from the United
Governments – that means there is no UGNA anymore. Just the broken
and bleeding old USA. Ditto Ukraine and Mongolia and the ‘Stans.
All these nations are potential members of either the FC or the
Neutral States. Get them working within an organization, at least
nominally, and we can suppress the worst of their impulses.”

“Sounds good. When can you have it done?”
Markis groaned. “Just kidding. I have to get some sleep. Can you
turn out the light and tell Millie to keep people away for a few
hours?”

“Sure. See you later.” She shut the door
behind her.

He lay down on his office couch and went out
with the lights, awaking after five hours. With a cup of strong
Colombian in his hand, he worked the communications systems,
cajoling and bullying, pleading and making deals.

At the end of the day he felt he had made
some progress. More importantly, he had gotten the most important
players – Russia, China and the US – to agree to reopen their
embassies in Medellin and, at least in principle, normalize
diplomatic relations with the FC. This time he went ‘home,’ which
was an apartment two blocks away. At least there he had his own
bathroom, his own kitchen, and his own bed.

His sleep was a big black thing, about
fourteen hours long. When he awoke, Murphy was there waiting in the
form of a knock at his front door.

“Sir?” It was Karl Rogett. “Miss Johnstone
sent word, they need you in at your earliest convenience.”

“Of course they do,” Markis grumbled. Fifteen
minutes later he was back in his office, well dressed, freshly
shaved, and feeling almost human.

Millie was waiting for him. “Sir, there’s an
intel briefing waiting as soon as you’re ready.”

“No ‘good morning?’ Must be serious, eh?” He
looked closer at her face, realizing she was frightened, really
scared in a way he hadn’t ever seen before, even during the recent
nuclear holocaust. “What is it?”

“Sir, it’s best if you let the intel people
brief you. And Colonel Muzik. In the secure conference room.” She
pointed unnecessarily.

“Right.” He frowned, grabbed a cup of coffee
and hurried downstairs to his waiting staff. Shutting the door he
immediately barked, “All right, what’s got everyone so spooked?
Something worse than nuclear war?” Hoping to lighten the mood,
instead his joke fell with a thud.

Lieutenant Colonel Muzik was already on his
feet. “Sir, something really strange. Intel and mil-ops both have
been getting reports from around the world. The news media and
political channels are heating up too. It’s an outbreak of some
kind of disease.”

Markis sat back, took a drink of hot coffee.
“So what do we know right now? Facts, not rumors.”

Muzik nodded to a young lieutenant. Markis
dredged up her name. “Ilona, right? Intel?” Bright, studious,
geeky, eager. Perfect for her work.

“Yes, sir. It’s a widespread outbreak but
only in certain places right now. We’ve plotted the reports on a
map and this is what we see.” The map showed the swaths of the
disease where the as-yet unrevealed probes had scattered the Meme
phages. “We are seeing flulike symptoms among normals. A few deaths
of old and weak, those with compromised immune systems. It’s
scaring them, though, there have been widespread outbreaks of
violence, looting and so on. But among Plague carriers, it seems to
trigger a massive immune response. Hundreds dying every hour.”