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with technicians and engineers snatching a break and a meal before continuing
the day's tests on into the evening. Murdoch and Anne found a quiet table in a
corner by a window looking out over the
VTOL pads, away from the chattering groups of people.
Waring and Fennimore, she told him, had confirmed that Lee was suffering from
whatever had afflicted the other eight. She went on to summarize as much as
she knew about the disease: It took the form of a rapid deterioration of the
myelin insulating sheaths that encased the nerve fibers of the brain and
spinal cord; it was caused by a virus that had been isolated, but that did not
belong to any of the strains familiar to medical science; the origin of the
virus had not been established; no method of halting the disease had been
discovered so far. She also told Murdoch that Lee was being moved that night
to a special section of the Intensive Care Unit at the Royal
Infirmary in Glasgow, which had been set up to take care of the Burghead
victims.
"You asked me to be frank," she concluded, speaking in a low voice. "At
present it doesn't look as if any of them has much of a chance of recovering.
The symptoms are almost certainly terminal."
"How long?" Murdoch asked stonily.
"It's difficult to say...A few months at the most, perhaps."
Murdoch stared at the top of the table for a long time without saying
anything. He had often tried to imagine what it would be like to be alone with
her and talk to her, but never had he dreamed it would be like this. "Why
Burghead?" he asked at last. "What's the connection with this place? Has
anybody found out?"
Anne pursed her lips and toyed with the handle of her coffee cup for a while
as if she were trying to decide something in her mind. Murdoch watched her in
silence. At last she looked up.
"I don't know why I should tell you this, but you seem to be a fairly
level-headed kind of person. And besides, you'll know about it before very
much longer anyway..." She paused to draw a long breath. "It doesn't have any
connection with Burghead. The first few cases happen to have broken out here.
As far as we can tell, that has nothing at all to do with the cause of the
disease."
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"What?" Murdoch stared at her uncertainly. "What do you mean, 'first few
cases'?"
Anne nodded. "We're starting to get reports of other occurrences -- from all
over --
people who have nothing to do with Burghead or any other kind of fusion
establishment. The only thing that the victims seem to have in common is that
they were all in the West Coast area of the
U.S.A. at around August-September last year. The eight from the plant were
there on an exchange program. We don't know why the symptoms appeared in them
sooner than in people in other places.
Presumably all the victims contracted the virus in August-September last year,
and since then it's been gestating. Some local factor may have triggered it
into an active state slightly earlier here
-- a dietary difference, maybe. It could have been anything."
"That explains something, anyhow," Murdoch said slowly.
"Oh, what?"
"That guy Fennimore wanted to know if Lee had been in California at around
that time. Now
I know why. Lee was there right through to the end of December."
"Were you there with him?" Anne asked, sounding suddenly alarmed.
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Murdoch shook his head. "No. I moved to New York in July. Fennimore asked that
too."
"Well, that's something anyway," Anne said, sounding relieved.
"Who is Fennimore?" Murdoch asked. "What's he doing here? Okay, so some new
kind of disease is breaking out in places. Why is it being hushed up?"
"I can't tell you very much about him," Anne replied. "He's an adviser on some
aspects of medical legislation to the Government. He visits Dr. Waring
occasionally. I never really get to speak to him."
"What kind of legislation?" Murdoch asked.
"I really can't tell you any more than that."
Murdoch eyed her suspiciously for a second or two. He had the distinct feeling
that she was holding something back, but he realized that she had already said
more than was necessary; he was hardly in a position to demand answers. He
rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a while and reflected upon the things she had
told him.
"So what does it point to?" he asked at last. "This virus, wherever it came
from, first showed up on the West Coast about nine months ago."
"Yes."
"And for most of that time it's been gestating. But in the last few weeks the
first symptoms of it going into an active state have started to appear...all
in people who were there at that time." Murdoch's eyes widened slowly as the
full implication dawned on him. He looked up sharply, but Anne kept her eyes
averted as if she knew already what he was going to say. "So what will happen
when it starts there?" he said. "There are millions of people who live there.
It's one of the most densely pop -- "
"It's already started," Anne said, looking straight at her cup and barely
moving her mouth. "We've had data coming through via London all day. It's not
being released for publication, but the media are bound to put it together for
themselves before long."
Murdoch gaped at her, horrified. "Where?" he gasped. "How many? How bad is
it?"
"Mainly in Northern California," she told him. "A lot in San Francisco; some
in the Los
Angeles area; a few in other parts of the world, but mainly other places in
North America, primarily cities. In total about three thousand cases have been
confirmed, but the rate of incidence is getting faster."
"Three thousand!" Murdoch was stunned. "Jesus! And there's no way of stopping
it yet? How fast will it spread?"
"Once the virus activates, it becomes infectious," Anne said. "Now that it's
started to appear in its active form, there's nothing except whatever natural
immunity exists to stop it spreading through a whole population. We don't have
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