CHAPTER 8

In the early part of the new year, work piled up increasingly. Under instruction from the Minister of Health of British Columbia, the Virus Research Laboratory was turned over to federal control. In addition to our attempt to modify the S-Flu, we were engaged in highly secret research on the synthesis of viruses, in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada and its American counterpart. Pat was still working although sometimes she was extremely tired and I was worried about her. The work was so secret that, instead of marrying me and settling down to being a housewife, she had stayed on at the Lab at the Chief's urgent request. She and Polly, besides being the best technicians in the hospital, were the only ones who knew the whole story of the virus war. Hallam knew by now that we were living together constantly but we all realized that there was no time for a honeymoon and the legal ceremony didn't seem very important under the circumstances.

A few weeks after our return from Quito the Chief had been called to Ottawa. On his return Pat invited him to our apartment for dinner. Polly and Harry made up the party. A couple of cocktails before dinner loosened our tongues and even Harry, who had been rather morose since the flu caught him, was able to laugh at the Chief's fund of good stories. Polly was her loquacious self again, I noted. Having the flu shortly after Harry hadn't bothered her much, but Harry's evident depression had.

After a heaping plate of lasagne and a large slice of fresh apple pie, Hallam sat back and loosened his belt with a sigh of repletion.

"It may be bad manners," he admitted with a smile, "but if I don't, I'll explode."

I offered him either a Drambuie or Australian port to go with his cigar. It was difficult choice as he loved both. The port won, for patriotic reasons, he said, and he tippled and puffed for a few minutes in complete contentment.

"You know, if I'd been ten years younger I'd have proposed to you myself." He winked at Pat. "The only trouble is that I wouldn't have been able to decide whether to keep you in the Lab or have you stay home to cook."

For a moment there was silence as we watched the fire. Then the Chief took a deep breath and let it whistle out of his nose.

"You're waiting to hear what happened down East, I imagine."

We all nodded and he continued. "When I arrived in Ottawa I checked with the Minister of Health but he wouldn't tell me anything. The following morning we flew to Washington where we were to attend a top secret conference headed by Prime Minister Macpherson of Canada and President Johnson of the United States." He paused. "Johnson, you remember, was the dark horse Democrat who swept the country after the moderate depression of the late fifties and the consequent decline in popularity of the Republicans."

"Anyway," he resumed, "the senior members of the Canadian cabinet and corresponding members of the United States Executive and Congress were to be there, as well as the military heads and observers from the British Commonwealth countries which had representation in Washington. The next morning, in the underground military headquarters which had been prepared for thermonuclear warfare, we assembled at our appointed desks. With their usual love for conferences, the Americans had made elaborate preparations, and we all had name tags and name plates on our desks, as well as microphones and loudspeakers so we could identify and hear anyone in the room. With very little preamble, both heads of state were introduced. The President was the first to speak. I'll try to give it to you as he said it."

* * * * *

"Gentlemen," the President began, "for one hundred and fifty years our two governments have been at peace and for the greater part of that time we have cooperated amicably on major problems. Since World War Two, that cooperation has continued with such projects as the Saint Lawrence Seaway, the DEW line, the various military highways, coordination of defense plans and military maneuvers, so it seems natural that we should cooperate now, in what I honestly believe is the greatest threat we have ever faced. The Prime Minister and I have already talked this over and he agrees with me that, because of the peculiar nature of this world war ... and I have no doubt that it is war ... we can make no public announcements at present, nor should we retaliate in ways which will cause greater harm to our people than they have already suffered." He paused briefly. "Let me make that concept clear.

"As most of you know by now, sterility flu is a synthetic disease agent introduced into the democratic nations by agents of the USSR. The evidence for this seems conclusive, especially as our own agents have succeeded in getting to us a few samples of the vaccines used to inoculate the school children and the members of the military services of that country. These vaccines were in use before ... I emphasize ... BEFORE sterility flu was reported in the western world. Our scientists tell me they contain protection against the S-Flu and probably, though this is not yet proved beyond doubt, against the so-called measlepox which is killing millions of people in Asia and Africa. We have indirect evidence that these same vaccines were also used to protect large numbers of Soviet civilians, adults that is, but not all of them. It has been extremely difficult and dangerous for our agents to obtain enough samples for testing as the vaccines are closely guarded and the whole manufacturing process is of the utmost secrecy. Apparently the dictatorial clique has decided to sacrifice a large number of unwanted human beings in the interests of Communism, under the guise of breeding a better race by elimination of undesirables. By sacrificing part of their own population they hope to persuade us that they, too, are innocent victims of world-wide pandemics. With this diabolical plot they hope to avoid the inevitable retaliation that would follow an open act of war such as a hydrogen bomb attack."

There was murmuring through the assembly. Many of the lawmakers had not known all the facts before the conference and none had seen the attack develop as we had.

"The credit for the discovery of this plot goes to Dr. Hallam of Vancouver, Canada, who is here in this room. He first suspected it and one of his associates, an American and former member of the United States Army Medical Corps, had the courage and good fortune to capture the first piece of vital evidence which proves this theory. It was an aerosol bomb, in the hands of men posing as recent immigrants to North America. By an extraordinary coincidence, and shrewd deduction, this gentleman was able to point to the ship that brought these men ashore. In fact his boat was in collision with the vessel as was subsequently proved by comparing paint scars and analysing the chemical composition of the paint from the two vessels. This gave us enough evidence to put our agents in Russia to work, with the result I have mentioned. If it were not for Dr. Hallam's deductions about the nature of the disease, and the early use of anti-serum, we should today be in an almost hopeless situation.

"As a result of this bacteriological, or rather virus warfare, we estimate that at least eighty percent of the population of India, China, the East Indies and Africa has died or will die from measlepox. There is no natural immunity. Our reports show that it has gained in virulence and shortened its incubation period as it spread and the mortality is reported as one hundred percent of those it attacks. Only pneumonic plague has ever equalled its deadliness and that died out after a while. The great increase in density of populations and in transportation facilities in the past fifty years, plus the artificial stimulation to further spread, has made this disease far more horrible. As you know already, all travel off this continent is now halted and nobody is allowed to enter by sea until a compulsory quarantine period outside the three mile limit has passed. Air traffic is under military orders. All troops and dependents overseas in threatened areas such as Korea, are already evacuated to quarantine zones in safe territory. A few members of advisory groups are staying behind, on a voluntary basis, to help our allies. Other garrisons, for example in Okinawa, are ready to leave."

There was a mixed reaction to this information, obvious in nods or shakes of heads.

"I realize this may leave our bases open to occupation by the enemy," the President continued, "but such would be open aggression and I do not believe they will risk it, especially if they think we are beaten already; they will be expecting to take over in their own good time." He stopped to drink from his water glass. "In the West we have a different problem. The enemy, hoping we would not be unduly alarmed by what seemed little worse than an epidemic of colds, infected us with sterility flu. The plan was to sterilize most of our male population before we became alert to the danger. It almost succeeded.

"I have the latest report from our public health authorities. It is estimated that eighty percent of the population of the United States and Canada has had, or will have, the S-Flu. Some twenty-five million people, both male and female, who are known to have escaped the disease, are at present protected either by weekly injections or by isolation, and we are searching vigorously for others. We hope in a few months time to have a vaccine which will give lasting protection. The combined police forces of both countries are searching night and day for the agents who, we suspect, are hiding in our cities, fanning the flu to fresh vigor whenever it shows signs of abating. If twenty percent do escape, since most of the females apparently do not become sterile, the future of our countries therefore will depend on the twenty million uninfected males. However, probably half of these are either too old or too young to be of use for procreation at this time. That leaves us with only ten million potential fathers north of the Rio Grande."

* * * * *

He paused to let this sink in and the buzz of conversation broke into excited comment. Tempers were getting short and here and there fists pounded the desks to emphasize a point. The chairman rapped for order and the President resumed as the noise died.

"The situation in Central and South America is worse. They do not have adequate facilities to protect their populations. Evidence is now coming in that S-Flu has also been let loose along with measlepox in the Orient so that those who escape the one and live may well have been sterilized by the other. The European countries have closed their borders in an attempt to keep the measlepox out. They are already overwhelmingly affected by the S-Flu.

"To sum up, except for the immunized master race of the USSR, the peoples of the world are either dead, dying or sterile. If ten percent escape one or the other fate we will be lucky. It might be considered that the war is already won, and so it is in the dying Orient, but we, although we are sterile, are still eager to fight ... and fight we must if we are to save America and democracy for our children."

A roar of cheering drowned his attempt to continue. Senators, soldiers and members of parliament were up on their feet, yelling, cursing, banging desks or releasing their anger in any way they could find.

"Give them the Hell bomb," yelled one.

"Send over our planes," a portly congressman screamed.

"Kill them all, the monsters."

"It was terrific," Hallam broke off his recitation to comment. "I was sure several of those old cobbers would have a heart attack, they were so mad. Then somebody cut off the microphones and the noise became bearable. Finally the President managed to get their attention and we all sat down again and listened."

"Your response is most heartening," the President resumed, "and just what I expected. However I want to make one point clear now. I, and Mr. Macpherson agrees with me, do not believe that the H-bomb or any other ordinary form of war is the answer to this for two reasons.

"Firstly, we have only a small fertile population left on which to rebuild our nations. The radiation effects of nuclear warfare might well turn those children of the future into misshapen monsters. We would have revenge at the cost of self destruction. Secondly, this is still an undeclared war. The Reds are probably counting on victory and do not know that we are aware of their villainy. They will not expect a counter-attack as long as we pretend ignorance. It is up to us to deliver one that will catch them too by surprise. If we succeed we turn what appears to be inevitable defeat into victory. At the same time we must direct our efforts into other channels and find ways in which to maintain our strength in manpower as well as in machines.

"For our first task--that is, the winning of the war, I believe we must remember the old saying, fight fire with fire. Our best hope is in utilizing our own scientists to produce biological or chemical weapons which will do to the Communists what they have done to us. For the second task I believe we will need new laws and new concepts of human behavior. We will have an opportunity, unequalled in history, to determine the future quality of our citizens. Let us go to this task full of confidence in our ability and thankful the Creator has allowed us another chance."

"After the President spoke," Hallam continued, "there was an explosion of applause, cheering, hand-clapping, shouting, whistling. It was long minutes before Mr. Macpherson could get their attention. He pledged Canada's full cooperation. In turn, the Commonwealth observers promised to get the help of their governments. Finally, committees were formed and the details of the President's broad concepts hashed out. Not every problem was settled right then, of course; that will take months, but the preliminary decisions were made."

"That's about the size of it," Hallam drained his glass, "except for what we are to do. Since we have been working on the S-Flu, we are to keep on, but with a different goal. We now have to build up a virus of our own with either a sterility factor or lethal properties and a very short incubation period."

"That's what the President meant by turning their weapons against them," Pat said.

"That is part of it," Hallam agreed. "It is axiomatic that this new virus must be far enough from the old one that there is little or no cross immunity, so that the vaccine the Reds took will not protect them."

"A tall order," I said glumly, "and while we try to do it, we hope the Commies will sit still, convinced that we are not suspicious of them."

"Like any murderers," Hallam said, "the Russians have to wait to see if the police suspect them. In the meantime, if they are smart, they won't draw suspicion on themselves by trying to profit from their crime. If my reasoning is correct, they may sit tight long enough for our surprise counter-attack to work."

* * * * *

"You said there were several committees, didn't you?" Pat questioned him. "Have you any idea what other plans were made?"

"There are many lines of attack open," the Chief replied. "The Departments of Agriculture of our countries have been working on B.W. for some time, as it concerns plants and animals. If we could ruin Russian crops or kill their animals it might force them to capitulate from starvation. The weather experts are studying ways of doing the same thing by droughts, storms and so on. And of course the physicists think of such things as causing radioactive clouds over Siberia. The trouble is, we don't want to make the Reds suspicious too soon, or give them an excuse for starting all-out atomic warfare, or even so-called conventional war. Our people are close to extinction now, with only ten million breeding males. It seems like a lot but unless they are protected, we are finished."

"What's to be done about this sterility problem?" Polly spoke up.

"There's bound to be a lot of discussion and some bitter arguments on that," Hallam smiled at her. "There are about thirty million women of childbearing age in the United States and Canada, of whom roughly twenty million might be from sweet sixteen to a very desirable thirty or so," he grinned at the girls as he talked and they laughed.

"O.K. that's us," Polly said, "the or-so gals."

Hallam continued, "And only ten million more or less desirable but presumably still potent males from say eighteen to fifty or so." He saw Pat's mischievous smile and added, "Yes, that's me." He went back to his thesis. "Only five million of these would be of compatible age to marry the younger women, assuming nobody is married right now. If we could forget age differences, it means one man to every three women of childbearing age. The problem is much more complicated, as you can imagine, since many of these fertile men are already married and many more women, who could bear children, are married to sterile males. If we were Muslims or old-time Mormons, it might be possible to start harems of fertile people but with our present customs that's impossible."

"Rough on the sterile males," I said smugly, "but mighty nice for the rest. What are we going to do--wear a badge or something?" I stopped in sudden realization; Harry had had the flu. He sat there silently, his face impassive. The only thing to do was to carry on.

"Get that smirk off your face," Pat ordered. "You aren't a free agent any more."

"Sometimes I envy you real bachelors, Chief," I said, and sighed deeply in mock despair.

* * * * *

Hallam chuckled and then said seriously, "If we sit and do nothing the population will drop off drastically as the old folks die but eventually, in a normal situation, the race would renew itself. It might be a good thing too, we have too many people now, except for one thing ... we need continuing manpower to beat the Communists."

He stopped to consider his next point. "To me, the logical solution is legal artificial insemination, voluntary of course, with sperm from carefully selected donors. In that way we would have less of a population drop and, I believe, improve the quality of the race; but it's a highly controversial question from scientific, legal and religious points of view. The committee will take some time and a lot of hearings before making even tentative decisions."

He stopped, and for a moment we were silent, thinking about our problems. Pat spoke first, "I keep remembering how we became aware of the S. factor ... I mean when that ferret aborted. I wonder if we could use that as our weapon. If all the farm animals and women in Russia were unable to conceive, or miscarry when they did, it would do the trick ... and it's a lot harder to determine whether a female is sterile than it is in a man."

"You have a possibility," I admitted. "Sometimes it's better to hit an enemy with a variation of his own favorite trick than to have an entirely new approach. If we could do that, we might fool the Reds into thinking something had gone wrong with their own S-Flu virus, such as another mutation. The difficulty is to avoid cross-immunity. We might do better to alter the measlepox so it would turn on them and kill them."

"Then you have lost the element of uncertainty that made the S-Flu so valuable a weapon," Polly said. "They could rally in time to stop it."

"A very good point." Harry spoke for the first time.

Again there was silence. I got up quietly to refill the glasses. Harry was staring at the fire; his face in the flickering light seemed tired and sad. I caught Polly watching him and saw the look of concern in her face and the faint wrinkle of perplexity between those artistically darkened eyebrows. The Chief was sunk down in his chair, in a daze partly of thought and partly of satiety. Absently he lifted his glass for a refill and then, looking through the deep red port to the firelight, he said to the room,

"The U.S. Navy is sending a special research team out to Formosa and the Army one to Japan, to study measlepox. Years ago they established well equipped research laboratories in those countries. The Canadian government wants one to go to Hong Kong."

Pat threw a quick glance at me but said nothing as he went on.

"They asked me for suggestions and I told them I'd take the team, but the Premier put his veto on that. He won't let me go. I objected to married men because it's likely to be dangerous work, at least until we get enough of the Russian vaccines to inoculate our men."

"When do they go?" I said.

"The advance parties should leave in a fortnight."

"Somebody should go from here, and since you can't go, that means me."

I had no wish to be a hero but there is a certain pride in a man. Our laboratory was the biggest, and I thought the best, virus research center in Canada. Somebody obviously had to do the dirty work if we were to be saved from destruction. Sooner or later the measlepox would invade the Americas or be brought in deliberately by the Reds. To paraphrase the old saying, as they wouldn't "let George do it," and as George was my boss, I was next in line.

The Chief was nodding his head in reluctant agreement as these thoughts ran in my head.

"Hold on a minute, there," Harry had come out of his trance and the sadness in his face was replaced by the excited, determined look of the volunteer, the man with an ideal. "This job is mine, it has to be!"

Polly was staring at him, her mouth half open, her drink stopped on the way to her lips. She put it down and spread her hands in appeal.

"I declare, the man's just naturally crazy," she said to Pat.

"They both are," Pat muttered angrily.

None of the men paid any attention.

"Why so, Harry?" Dr. Hallam asked.

"Sir, I've never said much about my parents except that they were medical missionaries in China and that I grew up there before the Second World War. You knew that, didn't you?"

The Chief nodded in agreement.

"Well, there's one point in my favor. I speak several Chinese dialects and can work without an interpreter. If we go to the mainland I know my way about, too. And I know enough virology to do field work."

Hallam nodded again. "That's true enough."

"But that's not all. I have a personal score to settle with the Reds and by God, here's my chance!" He leaned forward and almost spat the words right into Hallam's astonished eyes. Seeing Harry get angry was something like seeing an iceberg suddenly spout fire.

"I told you that my parents were missionaries in China. What I didn't tell you is that they never got out!"

He stopped. The rush of angry words from his flushed face died away into the room. In my mind they echoed again. "They never got out ... never got out ... never." We waited. The soft rustle of the flames seemed loud as their shadows wavered on the circle of still faces, all eyes were riveted on Harry.

More quietly now, his face once more almost its impassive self, he went on.

"They stayed with the Chinese Nationalist Forces all through the world war and afterwards, when the Communists took over, they were lost. When I was demobbed from the British Army I went to Hong Kong but I couldn't trace them and I couldn't get back into China. Some of the refugees I met thought they'd been executed for aiding the anti-communists ... mostly their own converts to Christianity, but there was no proof. That's why I came over here to work when I ran out of money. Vancouver is the closest main port to the Orient and I hoped I might keep in touch while I made a living. Now I know they are almost certainly dead ... and I want a chance to do something to beat those Red pigs."

* * * * *

His voice rose again on the last sentence and he looked straight at the Director. Hallam had sunk deep into his chair, again, his eyes shaded behind the heavy rims of his glasses.

"I see ... I see now," he murmured. "Yes, you must have your chance."

I looked over at Polly. Her eyes were wet and her lower lip looked suspiciously tight. She said nothing as Pat put a warm arm around her shoulders.

Harry was staring again at the fire. He was not here. Somewhere in China, or maybe nowhere in this world, was the red hell he saw in the flames.