“Jason? Colin? Luke?”
No answer. They’d run off. She was surprised because all three were usually obedient, but Colin and Jason had both been angry with her ever since the announcement that they were leaving the Venture site. She’d deal with them later. This e-mail was the reason she’d been teaching the boys here instead of in the classroom.
Her heart began a slow, arrhythmic bumping in her chest.
Harrison had written using the code they’d worked out, he skeptical that such “cloak-and-dagger histrionics” were necessary, she increasingly sure that they were. Each sentence meant something entirely different than its ostensible content:
My dear Marianne—
Not “dear Marianne” or just “Marianne.” The dead Mus had tested positive for hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome.
I find myself thinking about the time we spent together in the harbor, at Columbia, that day in Central Park…
Harrison’s hybridization analyses of the postmortem material had found either antigens or the viral RNA itself in the mice’s brain, liver and spleen.
… and, especially, that memorable boat ride on the Hudson.
A small groan escaped her. That was the worst. The virus’s genes had altered so that it could infect via a respiratory route. Either that evolution had occurred naturally, or there had been a long, intensive effort to change the genome.
I guess what I’m saying is that I would like to see you again…
Colin’s identification of the striped field mouse had been accurate. Apodemus had been imported to carry the virus here. Or rather, not here—to World.
She had no doubt now that Stubbins had imported and altered the virus, or that World was his target. Apodemus was an incredibly adaptive rodent, and Terrans already knew it was not killed by the spore cloud. Stubbins had stockpiled vaccine in case it was needed for just such an emergency as Colin’s escaped mouse. World would have no vaccines, no natural immunity. Judy’s speculations did not look quite so paranoid now. If Judy was right and World did not know as much genetics as Stubbins’s scientists did, Worlders would be vulnerable to even the threat of the disease. This version of HFRS was the most deadly, with a kill rate of 15 percent—and that was not counting what other microbes the mice might carry as they slipped, silently and pervasively, into whatever World cities looked like. And even if alien microbes killed the mice, the rodents would leave behind droppings, urine, carcasses, all infected with airborne viruses.
Smallpox to the Indians.
But why? What could Stubbins gain? Not revenge. Whatever the Russians might want, Marianne didn’t think that Jonah Stubbins was after vengeance. For that, you had to care about what you’d lost, and Stubbins cared for no one and nothing except profit. So—these mice were bargaining chips, threats, to obtain something from World. Trade, or tribute, or power, or maybe just survival.
There was one more piece to Harrison’s message: Eagerly awaiting your reply, Harrison.
He was notifying the CDC.
Folded up in the cupboard, Colin suddenly had to go to the bathroom. Was there a bathroom on the spaceship? There must be because every place had a bathroom, even parks, although Grandma wouldn’t let Colin use park bathrooms by himself. Colin wished he were in a park now. He crossed his legs.
There were less people in the ship now. Colin could hear every one of them, if he looked at the right rows of sounds. Closest was Mr. Stubbins, still on the bridge, rumbling at two men and Grandma’s friend Dr. Taunton. Colin was supposed to call her Aunt Judy, she said so, but he never did because she wasn’t his aunt. Aunt Elizabeth was his only aunt, and he hardly ever saw her because she lived far away in Texas, where she played with guns. She didn’t like children anyway.
What if Grandma took Colin and Jason to live with Aunt Elizabeth? Well, he wouldn’t go, he just wouldn’t! So there!
Crossing his legs wasn’t helping.
Marianne was still staring at Harrison’s message when Jason and Luke burst into the mess hall, panting, their faces gleaming with sweat. “We lost Colin!”
Marianne grabbed Jason’s arm. “What do you mean, you lost him? Is he hurt? What happened?”
“He ain’t hurt, ma’am,” Luke said, and belatedly Marianne saw that Jason was more excited than alarmed. Some sort of boyish adventure, then. But Colin was barely six.
She forced herself to calm. “Tell me what happened.”
“We went to see the spaceship,” Jason said. He propped himself with one arm against a table and pretended to pick a speck of dirt off his sleeve. Marianne recognized the attempt at casualness to cover transgression; she’d seen it in Ryan, just this same pose, all his life.
Jason continued. “There were people coming out of the bridge so we ran but Colin didn’t come. Maybe he wanted to find the mice.”
“Mice? What mice?”
Luke said in his slow, labored speech, “Mice on the ship. Lots.”
Stubbins was stocking his weapons. Oh dear God. How close was liftoff? Who knew? “Where did Colin go?”
“We don’t know,” Jason said. “Maybe he’s still on the ship? Or he ran away to hide? He’s mad at you, Grandma, ’cause he doesn’t want to leave camp.” After a moment he added bravely, looking directly at her, “I don’t want to, either.”
“I know. We’ll talk about it more. But right now I have to go find Colin. You two stay right here, do you hear me? I mean it. If I find out that you left the mess hall again…”
“Yes’m,” Luke said. He hung his head. Jason did not, but he sat on a bench and halfheartedly picked up his tablet, still displaying math problems.
Marianne moved at a fast walk to the Venture. She was not seriously worried about Colin, who was only acting out his displeasure at leaving. But what Stubbins planned was bioterrorism. Harrison would, of course, think first of the CDC; he focused on pathogens. But if Marianne was right and Stubbins actually intended to menace World, if he was bringing infected mice to threaten or retaliate—
She didn’t know how men like Stubbins thought. She never had. But others did know, the military and the FBI, and that’s where the CDC would report. The president. The UN. What was left of NASA. Something would be done. It was out of Marianne’s hands, and she knew that what she felt was, in part, a cowardly relief.
The door of the Venture stood open. Inside, two workmen were installing a door on a bathroom. Marianne was surprised at how complete the interior now looked. Seats bolted to the deck, tables, a wall screen that said “Sony,” a giant coffeemaker on one wall. The interior was being customized for Terrans. Doors led to the bridge, the shuttle bay, the aft storage area. Were the mice back there?
“Well, hold the fucking door steady!” one of the workmen said to the other.
“I told you, it won’t fit! No matter what the old man says!”
“Well, we need another one, then. We’re done here for today.”
Marianne went through to the bridge. Stubbins was there, along with Judy and the chief engineer, Eric Wilshire. Behind Stubbins stood his bodyguard, whom Marianne had never heard called anything but “Stone.” He was huge, muscular, and blank-faced. Not usually around when Stubbins was at the ship, Stone’s presence suggested that Stubbins had just returned from another of his off-site trips.
Judy carried an unlit cigarette and looked annoyed. “Eric, I’ve explained and explained. The plans are mostly pictorial and mathematical, so we’re guessing at all the effects, and even though the shielding seems minimal there’s evidence that the repulsion factor doesn’t exceed the—Hey, Marianne.”