Noah's Ark: Contagion (27 page)

“Simone, this is really important. Have you seen any child with the virus? I don’t just mean the ones here, the ones you’re looking after. Have you seen any child get sick anywhere on this ship?”

This time the girl thought hard before answering. Her eyes drifted towards the ceiling as she replayed the last twenty-four hours of her life back at high speed. “No,” she said finally. “No, I’m certain I haven’t.”

“Is it you who’s been going out finding the food?” A guilty look spread across the teenager’s face. “It’s okay, I’m not angry with you. In fact, I think you’ve shown incredible ingenuity,” Mandy said quickly. The guilty look changed, becoming one almost of pride.
 

“Yes, I’ve been finding rations for everyone here,” she admitted.

“And you haven’t seen any sick children while you’ve been out finding that food?”

“No. I would have taken them to medical if I had.”

Carrie looked around in awe. “They’re immune,” she said finally. “The children must be immune!”

Mandy nodded her head slowly. “I suspected. I was beginning to suspect. But seeing these kids, here? It’s a shock.”

“We have to tell Janice, and Vardy!” Carrie exclaimed.

“Yes. And they’re going to need some blood. Simone, we need at least three blood samples from different children. You know these kids, can you pick three who won’t be scared by a needle?”

“All kids are scared by needles,” she replied sceptically.

“Right. But this is important. These children could hold the key to a cure. We have to get blood samples from at least three. One of them can be you. In fact, one of them
should
be you. And one of the youngest, and one of the middle ones. If they can figure out the commonality, the link, it could save everyone!”

Simone remained quiet for a minute. “I thought there was a cure?” she said finally.

“There was,” Mandy said, sighing. “
Was
. And now, there isn’t. Simone, I’m going to get the equipment to take the blood samples. We’ll be back here in five minutes. Please, have two more children ready, and somewhere quiet we can do this. It’s more important than words can say.”

Twenty-Six

T
HERE
WAS
NO
time to worry about the missing raft. Ewan had to lower Jake’s immobile body onto a flat piece of concrete, relieving his arms and legs of the dead weight. Freed of the encumbrance, he scanned the loch for any sign of their tiny craft. There was none. The only vessels to be seen were the
Spirit of Arcadia
and HMS
Ambush
, connected, and floating just a few hundred metres away. It was clear that his only option was going to be to swim that distance and get help. The water would be icy cold, but at least the wetsuit would afford some protection.

Before he could go, he had to tell Lucya of his plan. She would worry that he had disappeared and, paralysed, wouldn’t be able to investigate.
 

Ewan set about climbing back up the concrete rubble, relieved that even though Lucya was partially immobilised, at least she was conscious and therefore not a dead weight like Jake had been.

He arrived at the top of the stack to find that he was wrong. Lucya lay sprawled out flat, syringe in her arm, and out cold. A cursory glance at her situation suggested she had lost consciousness and fallen backwards, her head hitting the concrete with some force. A trail of blood was visible under her hair, trickling out and over the boulder.

Ewan ran to her and checked for a pulse. She was alive, barely. Her breathing was shallow, her pulse weak. She was in dire need of medical attention. Seeing her condition sent a burst of adrenaline into Ewan’s bloodstream. With no further thought of the fatigue he was feeling, he scooped her up and began to pick his way across the rock-like boulders. She was, mercifully, much lighter than Jake.

As he had done only minutes earlier, he crabbed his way down the rough rubble, face to the concrete, Lucya over his shoulder. He tried not to think of the swim that lay ahead; he didn’t know if his legs would be up to it after carrying two heavy weights.

Finally he reached the bottom, and, easing Lucya off his shoulder, tried to lay her down carefully next to Jake. There was only one problem. Jake Noah had disappeared.

• • •

Doctors Janice Hanson and Russell Vardy were waiting anxiously for Mandy when she arrived. She had called down to alert them to her discovery before returning to take blood samples from three children. Simone had gone first, to show the others that there was nothing to worry about. In the end, there was a queue of six more children who wanted to give a blood sample as well. If their friends were doing something important and different, they didn’t want to be left out. They also understood perfectly well that their actions could help their unwell parents. It brought a tear to Mandy’s eye to see how desperate these tiny kids were to do something, anything, to help, even if that something was uncomfortable.

“How many samples did you bring?” Janice asked eagerly as Mandy walked into their makeshift laboratory.

“Seven. Ages range from six to sixteen years old. They’re all labelled.”

“Excellent, this is really excellent work, Mandy. You’ve done very well,” Vardy said, without looking directly at her. He was busy taking the box containing the blood samples from her hands.

“How did we miss this?” Janice asked. “How did we not notice the children were immune?”

“We don’t know they are, not yet,” Vardy cautioned. “Let’s keep an open mind.”

“If anyone should wonder how they missed it, I should. I mean, all the nurses should,” Mandy said. She pulled up a chair and sat down a little way from the working area, out of the way. “We’ve been treating patients since this thing started. We should have seen it. No children infected. Not one.”

“There’s no point in getting upset now. Besides, you’ve all been rushed off your feet. You can’t be expected to spot patterns, even glaringly obvious ones, under those conditions.”

“That’s kind of you to say, Janice. But I still think I should have seen it. Kiera’s dead, and that might not have happened if I’d been more vigilant.”

Janice didn’t reply. There was no point arguing about it now. Their time was better served trying to find out what made the children different.

“It’s interesting,” Vardy said, as he prepared a slide for the microscope. “Kids’ physiology differs from ours in quite a number of ways. They’re not just small adults, they’re almost a breed apart. I would have expected them to suffer more than adults; their immune systems are weaker. To not be infected at all, that suggests something else is going on here.”

“A child’s skin is thinner than that of an adult,” Janice said, thinking out loud. “And proportional to their body mass, a child has more skin. If the virus was being transferred by dermal absorption, we would certainly see a higher rate of infection in the young.”

“Right,” Vardy agreed. “But we were already pretty sure this thing is airborne.”

“Agreed. A child’s respiratory rate is higher than that of an adult. So their level of exposure to the virus is probably higher.”

“Mmm,” Vardy mumbled. He was hunched over the microscope, studying the first blood sample. “Yes…yes, yes, yes. This is very strange. The virus is present, and at first glance I would agree with your hypothesis. There looks to be a greater concentration of virus in this sample than in the adult samples.”

“So why isn’t—” Janice picked up the vial of blood and checked the label. “Simone, why isn’t Simone showing any symptoms?”

“Because,” Vardy stood up, looking perplexed, “the virus in her blood is dead.”

• • •

Jake Noah felt alive. More alive than he could remember feeling for weeks. He swam strongly, revelling in the freedom offered by the freezing water of the loch. Freedom from the confines of the
Spirit of Arcadia
. Freedom from the dreaded ash. Freedom from the gloom and oppression of the underground base.

His wetsuit, donned to protect him from the toxicity of the extra-terrestrial dust covering the ground, was now doing exactly what it was designed to do: protecting him from the chill of the water. The exertion of swimming towards the raft had quickly heated the thin layer of water trapped between his body and the neoprene suit, providing excellent insulation against the cold. Even so, that cold was ever present and he knew that if he stopped moving, even for just a minute, the icy temperature could easily finish him off.

The raft was about half way between the land and the cruise ship. He couldn’t understand why they had left without him. He remembered Lucya injecting him with something. It was that injection that had dragged him back to consciousness. “This will sort you out.” That’s what she had said to him. He replayed the words over and over in his mind, as he powered his way through the water. But then he had passed out again, as the virus raged on, draining the reserves of his embattled body.

The next thing he remembered was waking up on a slab of concrete, near where they had moored the life raft when had had arrived with Vardy and the boys from the
Ambush
. There was no raft to be seen, and no sign of Lucya either. He had been straining his eyes, trying to see if the raft was back with the cruiser when he saw it float into view. It had been hidden behind a headland of more smashed concrete and rubble. The wind was getting up, whipping across the water, so it seemed to him that Lucya had gone on ahead and then been blown off course. That’s when he had dived into the loch and started swimming, desperate to reach the safety of the little black-and-red inflatable. Such was his determination, he didn’t even notice that his legs were working again until he had already swum a good fifty metres. It was that realisation that had led to his feeling of euphoria, there in the freezing water of Gare Loch. Lucya had saved him; he was mobile again. That meant that the antivirus worked. They were going to be able to save the rest of the sick. And then they could go back to the base and bring back enough food to feed everyone for months.

He had almost reached the raft. For some reason the canopy was up. He wondered why Lucya had raised it. Perhaps, he thought, to keep the wind out. It wasn’t until he was almost touching the vessel that he noticed that nobody was rowing; it was drifting free.

Jake stretched out a hand and grabbed onto the rope that circled the huge inflatable tube that made up the structural sides of the raft.

“Lucya! It’s me!”

She didn’t respond.

Jake hauled himself up out of the water, grabbing at the black air chamber. He swung his legs over and rolled into the vessel, landing on his back, staring up at the bright orange canopy. Still nobody spoke. He sat bolt upright and looked ahead through the opening. He was facing the land. Standing on the concrete slab he had woken up on, he could make out a figure waving manically at him. It looked a lot like Ewan. There was someone else too, lying flat, next to the man. “Lucya?” Jake said to himself. Suddenly he made the connection in his mind. Lucya hadn’t abandoned him at all. She had come to save him, but the raft must have broken free and floated off in the wind. He looked around, expecting to see only a pair of oars with which he could row back to the base. The oars were exactly where he imagined, safely stowed on the floor between the two cross chambers that served as seating in the emergency craft. Lying next to them, was a body. A body without a head.

• • •

Vials of blood, microscope slides, and extensive hand written notes littered the working area in the temporary lab. Russell Vardy’s excitement was evident.
 

“The same!” he exclaimed, holding up another slide. “Exactly the same! The virus is present, but dead. Something in these children is killing it as soon as it enters their bloodstream. We just have to isolate whatever the common entity is in these blood samples. It’s like they all have a built-in immunity.”

“I want to share your enthusiasm, Russell, but so far I see nothing special in any of these samples. There’s nothing here that isn’t present in the blood of the affected adults,” Janice said.

“Something is doing this. Something is killing the virus. We just have to find it.”

“If there’s something there, it’s well hidden. I’ve run all the standard tests and there is nothing out of the ordinary here. This blood is the blood of normal, healthy children. Apart from the dead virus, that is.”

“It’s there, Janice. It has to be!”

“Could I ask something?” Mandy piped up from her seat. She hadn’t moved since arriving. The laboratory provided a welcome break from the chaos of deck eight. Besides, with no more medication there was little she could do up there.

Vardy and Janice turned to look at her. They had both forgotten the nurse was still in the room.

“It’s just…” Mandy began. “Listen, I’m a nurse, not an expert like you two. But why not, instead of looking for what’s in the blood, why not just put some infected blood into the children’s blood and observe what happens?”

The two doctors turned and stared at each other.

“Right, of course, it’s a silly idea,” Mandy said, shaking her head. “Ignore me! Sorry to interrupt.”

“Mandy, you’re a bloody genius,” Vardy said. He strode over to her, grabbed her head in his hands, and kissed her hair. “That should have been the first thing we tried!” he exclaimed. “We’ve been going about this arse about face. Of course that’s what we should do.”

“We’ve all been awake too long,” Janice said, smiling. “We’re over thinking the problem.”

She grabbed a fresh Petri dish, then selected blood from one of the healthy children, and a sample from an infected adult. Vardy rejoined her as she injected both blood samples into the dish, under the lens of the microscope.

“What’s happening? What’s it doing?” he asked excitedly.

“Nothing yet. Patience, Surgeon Lieutenant, patience.”

• • •

“What’s happened to Lucya?” Jake scrambled to get out of the raft. Ewan had grabbed the line he’d thrown him and was busy securing it to a boulder. His task was not made any easier by the fact that the wind was now reaching storm force, pushing the little inflatable around and causing it to tug on the rope.