The SONG of SHIVA (39 page)

“And that’s where you were when I burst in to rescue you ―
to
a fate worse than death?”

“No, it isn't like that at all. But if we can agree that life is no more than timing and position,
this
is my life now. I totally accept that. It's only that the experience forced me to question whether, at heart, I lack any sort of courage ― that I'm completely incapable of believing in something enough to actually risk my life to protect it.”

“Let me think about that,” Nora replied. “Hard to see how you had a reasonable alternative. But there is something that might help me ― only if you answer truthfully.
Do
you regret being rescued?”

He had already asked himself this question. “Maybe not in my own words, but someone else's...

Spring grasses o’er the meadow wave

Lushly in the breeze

’Til autumn do the seasons brave

Leaves shaking from the trees

Fear not for the future

Nor the terror that flies by night

While angels by thy light endure

And offer their delight.

I freely choose to cleave to thee

Cling to thee alone

Through Winter’s bite

As wild winds blow

And cold chills to the bone 

In cast of hope and wisdom

As the Fates intend

I promise by this troth

To love thee sweetly

As completely

As spring grass loves the glen

Forsake the past

Be fixed at last

With thee my fortune spend.
”

“You need a quote?” Nora asked.

“Never much of a poet on my own. Why, are you offended?”

“Not with you, not even with, who knows, is that Shelley?”

Lyköan shook his head.

“One of the other Romantics then ― Byron or Keats?”

“Hardly,” Lyköan chuckled. “But those are all good guesses. Actually, it’s Zim Dixon.”

“You’re
kidding
. I wouldn’t have thought that weasel was capable of what sounds so beautifully ‘period’. Are you sure he didn’t steal it?”

“Who knows?” Lyköan shrugged. “He
has
been known to filch a line or two in the past. But these lines come from a song that never made it commercially.”

“It
is
beautiful though. Like he had tapped into an earlier time.”

“Who knows? Maybe he did.”

“Since you’re so fond of quoting poets, I’ve got one for
you
.”

There’s nowhere you can be

That isn’t where you’re
meant
to be.

It's easy.

After the briefest reflection, Lyköan replied, “So, you can still accept me, even knowing I how much less than heroic I am? And I won’t be stepping on else’s shadow?”

“Stepping on whose shadow?”

“Beside my cowardly story, your dead husband looks like a beacon of courage.” His earlier confidence had evaporated. If he had doppelgänger existences, didn’t everyone?

“Of course not. That’s ridiculous.”

“You sure of that?” He still wasn't certain himself.

“Absolutely,” She replied, sidling closer. Speaking only slightly above a whisper, she admitted, “I have been for quite some time.” Pulling his face to hers, she opened her mouth into his.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

It is time for the harvest. The schnitter drives with full course into the ripe seed.

Hans Scholl & Alexander Schmorell :

The 4th Handbill of the White Rose

Nora was alone in the lab. When Yin Yat Chen had left exhausted only a few minutes before, she had made Nora promise to wrap it up by three. For the fifth night in a row she would be locking up alone, and as had been true after every previous twenty-hour shift, she would feel exactly the same guilt as she turned off the lights.

In the background the radio was playing a frenetic Thai pop melody that echoed off the bare laboratory walls. Thoughts cycling wildly, her body was coursing with bioelectro-chemical stimuli, much like the thousands of experimental fast-breeding vaccine cultures incubating behind the electronically guarded door in the adjacent lab. Hermetically sealed in phalanxes of temperature-controlled stainless steel racks, this sea of tapered amber-colored vials, close to four thousand therapeutic doses, would be ready for human trials within days.

A similar culturing environment was being built at the CDC labs in Atlanta. French and Japanese counterparts had been authorized to breed vaccine their own cultures in similar facilities. Private industry had also been enlist for support. Aescugen, the biotech giant, was working with Sloan Kettering. Caduceuticals, a small San Francisco biotech start-up, was pursuing work on a slightly altered design. Both companies had been given unrestricted permission to breed cultures based on the Carmichael-Yin platform, augmenting and streamlining the process in any manner they considered advantageous.

Was this unfocused effort the best approach? Would even one of these slightly different processes succeed? It didn’t matter how success was achieved, even less who ultimately received the credit; all that mattered was that at least one of the pursuits led to a viable vaccine before the epidemic reached critical mass.

Let Egan worry about the metaphysics. Nora still didn’t know what to make of that aspect of the overall insanity, whether it was really important or not. Her focus was on the material world ― the hard science required to succeed in the only universe were she was comfortable, the one in which she walked and breathed, considered and experienced, the only universe that appeared capable of possessing the tangible proofs required of genuine existence. One existence was plenty, all her psyche could conceivably handle. There was purpose in what she was doing, reason for why she drove herself. She was doing this for Dana and Emily; for Diane and her family; for the memories of Jack Cummings, Ning Zhòngní, and especially for Marty. She was doing this for the whole damned human race with all its grand hopes and dreams, foibles and failures. That was more than enough motivation ― and responsibility.

She wasn’t sure she even half-believed the metaphysical angle anyway. Like many other aspects of her relationship with Egan, their independent pursuits had devolved, demarked, delineated down some seemingly foreordained, natural bifurcation. But one that worked beautifully. Nora had no desire to risk altering even a single detail.

Besides the Atlanta program, CDC had contracted for construction of similar fast-batch installations at Bethesda, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore, all high security locations. Langley was undoubtedly working on a similar platform elsewhere, growing their own secret batches with national security in mind. But they weren’t talking.

Save the bureaucracy at all costs
, she thought wryly.
Heaven forbid the best of all possible governments be threatened. Who cares how many of the governed end up dead, as long as plenty of bureaucrats survive
.

Nora had plied the Byzantine Washington labyrinth for most of her working life and understood it only too well. Like any living organism, its first concern was self-preservation. She also understood the strictures of science. No amount of money could guarantee success of any untested concept when the critical path was linear. One step had to prove the next. Only time would tell if they were proceeding down the correct path right now. But she welcomed anyone and everyone’s input, and had given them all the same information, an equal fighting chance, if only because they were all running out of time together.

Hasty manufacture of as many doses as possible just as the TAI-2 pandemic began circling the globe, if it turned out to be a viable vaccine, might provide buffer enough to rescue civilization. But it couldn’t possibly arrive before millions had died. In the last two days, confirmed outbreaks had been reported in Beijing and Osaka. Unconfirmed whispers of martial law and summary executions were following in the footsteps of refugees fleeing mainland China. The Thai government refused to comment on persistent rumors that dozens of people had fallen ill right here in Bangkok.

Minutes later, as she was exiting the darkened compound alone, hurrying to the waiting taxi beneath the feeble sliver of a waning moon, she permitted herself another brief reflection. It had been ten days since touching down on the Suvarnahbumi tarmac. In some respects the days had flown by like the flutter of wings.

But, by an equally indefinable measure, the slow-machines had held the hands of time at bay. She had been able to reach the girls by phone to let everyone, including the CDC, know where she had resurfaced and that, at least for now, she was safe. That had been a blessing. CDC had happily sent replacements for the WHO scientists still quarantined in Vietnam. Many of those eager faces were familiar and she was grateful for their speedy arrival. Without their help, flash incubation would still be an untested concept. The kernel of the process had been extrapolated from her stolen Innovac data. How ironically fitting.

The cab she had called the instant her hands were free of the Stoyner box was parked at the curb, waiting to whisk her back to the Ayutt Haya ― less than fifteen minutes away at this lightly trafficked hour. Once in the back seat and on her way, she fell into a delicious waking dream of the sweet embraces awaiting her return ― even at three in the morning. It would be wonderful to get close to him again, be able to cradle one another, express and respond as physiology and nature intended. She longed for that otherworldly distraction with its magical ability to compensate for every blow this callous universe could deliver, slake its utter heartlessness and soothe the buffeting turmoil. Even as she yearned for its refuge, she knew it was no lasting solution. But that only made her want it more.

* * *

Jimmy was a veritable fountain of information, if you knew how to fish between the lines of his halting pidgin English. Lyköan could think of no better location for sifting through those lines this morning than where they had agreed to meet, one of the chaotic hallways of the Ministry of Health. Standing against one wall, jostled and elbowed by the sweep of the developing emergency, two outsiders were hardly noticed.

His face shining like polished copper, Jimmy peered out from under the brim of a green-felt porkpie. The shimmer of gasoline on black water reflecting from the iridescent indigo hatband was almost too painful for Lyköan to bear. Averting his gaze, he looked out into the crowded hallway, thinking:
Christ, this guy never disappoints
.

Since returning to Thailand he had spent hours at Sun Shi’s feet learning to interpret and use these strange new insights to his advantage, although he still found the unnatural perceptions painful and unnerving. How long would he go on lamenting the simple and staid world he had lost?

Who needs a blinding verdigris barrage to recognize this little twerp is lying?
Or the progression of shells within shells of the current conversation. All of them dirty. All of them just as obvious.

“No. No,” Jimmy replied unconvincingly. “Virus confined to southern provinces. City safe.”

Right
. “And the rumors that people are dying in Klong Toey?” The lower class neighborhood was less than four miles away.

“Unconfirmed. Food poisoning perhaps?” Jimmy suggested helpfully.

“Sure.”

“It happens.” The rigid smile was fixed as stone.

Am I being that obvious? Good.
“What were you able to learn about the Innovac assets? Is the ministry investigating?”

Primrose and Innovac had acquired at least seven additional small corporate entities during the previous year and they in turn owned dozens of others. Without the government’s help it would take weeks and an army of motivated gumshoes to unravel the complex business associations and investigate them thoroughly. Gordon, of course, could have identified every one off the top of his head, but Gordon too had disappeared.

If we could locate Gordon we could
...
Hell, if it were only that simple…

“Ministry say infection threat most important,” Jimmy explained. “Innovac now low priority.” He had drawn out the word ‘l-o-w’ with deep inflection.

“Uh-huh,” Lyköan nodded.

Why was the government stonewalling like this? The answer lay in another equally difficult question. Why did any rapacious autocratic state ever feel compelled to do what it did? Self-preservation. If the populace ever got wind of the ugly, underlying truth, there would not be enough gallows in the entire country to fill the demand. What was the Ministry of Health trying to protect? Or whom? If Lyköan’s suspicions were correct, the better question was why?

“Ministry opened WHO laboratory at UN request. How much more can they do?”

“Nothing they don’t care to.”

Fremont and the US ambassador had pulled out all the stops to get that much. Even so, it had taken three days of President to Prime Minister wrangling and the threat of leaking the existence of Thai-based and US-sponsored terror suspect prison camps before the doors were finally thrown open to the WHO and the CDC.

“Isn’t the government at all interested in finding out if Primrose-Innovac had a hand in any of this? They were sure quick to jump on the WHO when they thought
it
might be involved.”

“No, not interested. All I know.”

“They may live to regret that lack of concern,” he managed through clenched teeth.

He had toyed with the idea that Pandavas might still be supervising construction at the Primrose sites, but the general contractor insisted work was continuing based solely on existing instructions and funds. Fremont agreed. An exhaustive investigation had turned up no evidence that Innovac corporate had so much as made a phone call to the contractor in weeks.

One interesting but useless detail
had
surfaced. Whitehall had evidently returned to Bangkok briefly, been sighted with Gordon, and cleared out personal effects from his home. The two of them had subsequently disappeared less than twenty-four hours before the opening of the TAI-2 conferences. Lyköan marveled at the stopwatch precision of their getaway.

Nora had estimated that the first cases of the variant influenza would appear within days. Initially, they were sure to be confused with TAI-2. She was working on a screening test that could distinguish between the two pathogens. It might prove a helpful tool, but little more. Until those additional infections were identified, determining where the second virus had been dispersed was impossible.

While precious seconds ticked away, here he was, sparring with this creepy little foil. What were they sparring over anyway? Something valuable the boy might know, but was hiding? Some other unknown point of reference, or maybe it was an inference? Lyköan had traveled down the conversational road about as far as it would take him, over and back again, the scenery a scattering of omission and outright deceit. He had seriously considered physically threatening Jimmy, throttling that skinny chicken neck and putting the fear of God into him, but he daren’t do it now and show his hand. By stealth or subterfuge he had to find another way to wring the truth out of the wilderness of polite Thai deference ― and soon.

* * *

Fremont relayed the news somberly to the tinkle of ice against crystal in the low light of one of the Ayutt Haya’s five lounges. Kosoy’s autopsy results had come back ‘inconclusive’.

“Cause of death could not be determined. The autopsy and additional pathology confirmed it wasn't a vascular accident, occlusive and hemorrhagic stroke, coronary occlusion or cardiac arrhythmia. Plenty of suspicious organ damage, but toxicology came back negative too.”

“No idea at all about what might have been responsible?” Nora asked. She was angry, felt betrayed by her own profession. Wasn’t medical science supposed to have all the answers? Its failure here felt like a personal affront.

“‘Possible anaphylactic reaction to some unknown allergen or toxin’ was the pathologist’s exact chart entry. He admitted it was no more than a guess. Said something to the effect that medicine wasn’t an exact science.”

“Evidently not much of a
science
at all,” she heard herself say.

“Of the three of us, Doctor, I would have thought you’d be the one most accepting of your own discipline’s shortcomings.”

Medicine not an exact science? It was secular blasphemy. If medicine could be so easily maligned, what would be next, a ‘hard’ science like physics or mathematics? The phrase ‘exact science’ itself was already something of an oxymoron, wasn’t it? She had once unquestioningly believed, known with metaphysical certitude, that two and two would always and forever equal four. But now she wondered if anything proposed by the human mind could ever be depended upon to unerringly hold water.