Noah's Ark: Contagion (13 page)

“There has been an outbreak of a rare virus on board the
Spirit of Arcadia
. We believe this began somewhere on deck eight, and those on that level are the most at risk of becoming infected. Many have already been taken ill. Our medical team are working around the clock to treat everyone affected. Unfortunately some of the team have, in the course of their duties, also contracted the virus. The committee is in the process of contacting everyone on board with medical knowledge or experience, but it would save an enormous amount of time and be beneficial to the community as a whole if those people could make themselves known by reporting to the bridge, located on deck ten.

“Our knowledge of this virus is limited. I can tell you that it appears to be airborne, probably infecting others through coughs and sneezes. Deck eight has been quarantined as a precaution, and nobody other than the medical team should enter or leave. It is, I must tell you, entirely possible that this virus has already spread to other areas of the ship, or will do so soon. In order to provide the best protection to the community, we would urge everyone to stay in their cabins as much as possible. The less contact there is between people, the less opportunity the virus will have to spread.

“If you believe you yourself may be infected, please return to your cabin and call the medical team on 711; someone will come to you. Early symptoms of the virus include paralysis of the lower legs and feet. If you are suffering symptoms other than these, you probably do not have the virus and we would ask that you do not contact medical unless your symptoms are severe.

“At this time we do not know precisely how serious a threat this virus is to our health. I must stress that the measures we have put in place in terms of restrictions of movement are purely precautionary, and whilst caution and concern are normal and to be encouraged, there is no reason to panic or believe that—as some rumours are suggesting—we are all going to die from this illness.

“Our medical team, along with Surgeon Lieutenant Vardy from HMS
Ambush
, are confident that we will have a full diagnosis soon, and that we will be able to eradicate the virus completely.

“We have, as many of you will have seen, now entered the Firth of Clyde. By morning we will reach a naval base at Faslane. There, we have reason to hope we will find additional medical supplies.

“In the meantime, please try and restrict your movements about the ship as much as possible. I, or another representative of the committee will keep you informed of developments as they occur. Thank you for listening, and I wish everyone aboard a safe and pleasant night.”

• • •

“Do you think they’ll buy it? The ‘no reason to believe it’s dangerous’ line?”

“Some might. Most? Probably not. What can I say though, Lucya? ‘Sorry, we’ve no idea what it is or how to cure it, but it will probably kill you in twenty-four hours.’ I can’t see that helping.”

“What about staying in cabins? People still have to eat, Jake.”

“I know, but the opinion of the committee is that if people willingly shut themselves in their cabins, they’ll forego dinner, and maybe even breakfast. At least wait it out until it’s clearer what’s happening. It works to our advantage; we’re so low on food this is a way of making what’s left go further.”

“I suppose so. I wish I could have been at the meeting.”

“Someone had to look after Erica. How did you get her to sleep? Wasn’t she still insisting on seeing her father?”

“She was too tired, even she admitted it. But tomorrow we have to tell her the truth; we can’t hide it forever.”

“I know, I know.”

“It’s okay, I’ll do it, Jake, I don’t mind.”

“I wasn’t trying to get out of it. I can tell her, if you want.”

“No, it will be easier coming from me. We’ve got a bit of a bond already I think.”

“Listen, I’m going to head back to the bridge for an hour, just to see how McNair is doing. It feels odd leaving a submariner at the helm, even if it is the computer doing all the work.”

“Coote said he has experience of cruise ships; he’ll be fine. Anyway, it’s only for the night shift.”

“Yeah, but I’m still the captain, it’s still my responsibility. Just for an hour.”

“I might be asleep when you get back.”

“Then again, you might not.”

“Cheeky.”

Fourteen

J
AKE
ROSE
AT
six in the morning. He was surprised to have slept so well given his state of mind. He was equally surprised not to have been woken by anyone coming to tell him that the virus had now reached epidemic proportions, or that the last of the food had gone, or that some other disaster had beset them. He dressed quietly, and leaving Lucya and Erica sleeping, headed straight for the bridge.

His trip through the ship was eerily quiet. Normally there was activity at every hour of the day or night, but now the corridors and public areas were completely deserted. There was only the gentle hum of electric strip lights to accompany the sound of his footsteps. He had seen the ship like this once before, when she was brand new and he had been given a tour by Captain Ibsen once he’d been assigned to the
Spirit of Arcadia
. She was still in dry dock, having a few finishing touches before her official launch. Back then, everything had seemed shiny and new. Now, so many years later, the carpet looked as though someone had turned down the contrast. The walls and doors bore the scuff marks of thousands of children paying not quite enough attention to where they were running in their excitement. Even the ceilings looked different, with the odd yellow stain here and there caused by leaky pipes or condensation. But the feeling of emptiness, of being in on a secret that nobody else knew yet, that feeling was the same. He could almost pretend that everything was fine.

But everything was far from fine.

“Good morning, Captain,” McNair greeted him as he walked onto the bridge.

“Is it? How are things?”

“Well from our perspective we’re doing great. We’ve made good time.”

Jake looked out of the huge windows. They were surrounded by land on three sides. The loch they were sailing through was about fifteen kilometres wide, and the end was just about visible to the naked eye. Much closer than the far end of the loch though, was Faslane. He had expected it to look much like Longyearbyen, but strangely, it seemed worse.

“Hell of a mess, isn’t it?” McNair asked, catching the look on Jake’s face. “Most of that debris is from the ship lift. It’s a monster. Was, anyway. It could lift sixteen-thousand-ton vessels out of the loch. I suppose that’s small fry to you cruiser sorts, but that’s a big sub.”

“It looks like it was stamped on by the foot of a giant,” Jake managed to say, still in awe at the level of destruction wrought by the asteroid.

“There was a shed over the top that must have been pulverised. I didn’t expect the concrete superstructure to be so,” he searched for the right word, “obliterated.”

Jake had seen what the asteroid had done to a concrete pier, but that was further north where the space rock had been gaining altitude and losing some of its destructive force. Here in Scotland it was clear that the base had felt its full might. A gigantic area, kilometres wide, had been flattened. The concrete frame of the ship lift lay strewn across the remains in chunks ranging in size from gravel like stones up to pieces the size of cars. A thick layer of toxic ash enveloped the whole mess like a woolly blanket, making the landscape look something like the surface of the moon.

“Eagle-eyes has been studying it for the last couple of hours from the
Ambush
, as soon as it was visible from the periscope array. He thinks a pressure wave built up in front of the asteroid and that’s what did the most damage.”

“Like an aircraft breaking the sound barrier?”

“Yes, exactly like that.”

“How many people worked there, on the base, McNair?”

“About six thousand, give or take. Plus the crews of any ships and subs that are in at the time.
Were
in at the time,” he checked himself.

“Six thousand people, wiped out in what, a second or two?”

“It’s hard to comprehend, I know. The only consolation is that it would have been over quickly for them, very quickly.”

Jake nodded slowly. He didn’t believe it was much consolation at all. Then he thought about the people suffering on his own ship and reconsidered. Perhaps, he thought, being vaporised by a pressure wave in a second was a better way to go.

He made his way over to the unmanned communications console and sat down. He put the phone on speaker and dialled the number for medical, without really knowing where the call would be routed.

“Medical, Mandy speaking?” The voice sounded exhausted.

“Mandy, this is Captain Noah. What’s the situation this morning?”

“Not good. At a guess I would say half of deck eight has gone down with the virus. Your call last night brought us five new nurses; they’re running around doing what they can. We’ve had cases reported on decks six, seven, nine, and quite a few on deck three.”

Jake closed his eyes. Deck three was where the crew cabins were located. He knew that every case was serious, but to hear crew were infected meant more of his friends were likely in danger.

“Are any of the drugs showing signs of working?”

“Not really, no. One or two people have shown a little improvement, but really, all we can do is try and make them comfortable. Kiera is very sick, and I saw Grau a couple of hours ago, he’s not in great shape either. David has also gone down with it.”

“How long have you been working, Mandy?”

“Since I was called to medical.”

“You mean you’ve worked round the clock?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Take a break, please, take a break. We need you on form, don’t kill yourself. If there are other nurses there, let them take some of the strain.”

“I suppose I could try and catch five minutes, if you think it’s okay.”

“Mandy, take more than five. Get some sleep, that’s an order. And afterwards, you’re in charge of medical, okay?”

“What about Janice? She has much more experience than me. I’m just a nurse!”

“There’s no such thing as just a nurse. All nurses are amazing, and that includes you.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

He ended the call, and returned to McNair.

“Listen, are you okay staying on here a bit longer? I need to go and see someone. Chuck should be up in another hour or so to take over.”

“Fine with me. Been a long time since I was at the wheel of one of these beasts. It’s been fun taking to the surface for a while.”

• • •

“Morning, old boy. How are things looking?” Coote asked, his tone less upbeat than usual.

“Not good. The virus is spreading throughout the ship, and my entire regular medical team are down. Is Vardy about?”

“He’s been working on those blood samples of yours all night. He won’t leave his lab until he has something. I’ll come with you.”

“I was rather hoping you would. I can never find my way around this thing on my own.”

Coote led Jake through the submarine to the doctor’s lab. Jake had made use of the medical bay the first time he had been aboard, but the lab was new to him. His first impression was that calling it a ‘lab’ was somewhat misleading. With space at such a premium, Vardy’s equipment was located in the corner of a tiny maintenance workshop towards the front end of the submarine. He had a series of technical-looking machines stacked one upon the other. One such device was filled with tiny vials of blood, much smaller than those Jake had brought over the previous night. They rotated and jiggled about slowly. Other instruments had digital readouts, dials labelled with indecipherable scales, and pulsing screens. The only thing Jake recognised was a good old-fashioned microscope, although a very powerful-looking one. It was over this microscope that Vardy was hunched. He looked up when he heard the two captains approach. His eyes were bloodshot, and Jake suspected that wasn’t from having them pressed to the eyepiece. Mandy wasn’t the only one to have pulled an all-nighter.

“Coote, Jake.” he nodded to them both.
 

“Anything?” Coote asked simply.

“Maybe. I think so. I mean, possibly. I don’t want to get our hopes up. The deceased man—”

“Scott,” Jake interjected.

“Yes, Scott. He was suffering from leukaemia. That’s the good news.”

“How exactly is that good?” Coote scratched his head.

“I understand he died within about twenty-four hours of contracting the virus? Messily?”

“Yes. At least, he died within twenty-four hours of being brought to medical,” Jake agreed.

“Right. And that’s because his body was already weakened from the leukaemia. That suggests the other patients may not go downhill quite so quickly.”

“Could it be non-fatal in the other patients?” Jake asked hopefully.

“I wondered that too. But on further analysis, I fear the answer is no. This is a particularly vicious little virus, I’ve never seen anything like it. As far as I can tell it appears to cause massive damage to the blood cells, rupturing them, popping them like balloons. I haven’t yet discovered the mechanism by which it does so, but its rate of destruction is remarkable. Scott died quickly, but I suspect other patients will only have a few hours more than him. Twelve, perhaps twenty-four hours more, but nobody who gets this is going to live more than forty-eight hours, it’s just not possible.”

“And the girl’s blood? Why is she not infected? What’s different about her?”

“The girl is also unwell. She is carrying the influenza virus.”

“Erica has flu? She seems fine to me,” Jake said.

“Most likely. She has only a very mild strain of the flu and her young immune system has managed to beat it off. The virus is almost gone. She probably had a bit of a high temperature, some aches and pains, maybe a headache for an afternoon, but nothing serious.”

“And you think that her having the flu is protecting her?”

“It is my hypothesis that the virus which killed Scott, and that is spreading throughout the ship, is a mutation of Erica’s mild flu. The relationship is clear to see; there are certain markers in the virus itself that show a link back to the flu. It’s like tracing ancestors through common markers in DNA,” Vardy added.