Antibodies.
© Copyright to Beverly Taff.
“Come and look at this Bev.” Jamie exclaimed as she adjusted the screen.
I looked up from my Star ship log.
“What’s up Babes?”
“I dunno. I’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s not in solar orbit. Looks like an extra-solar arrival. It’s a funny colour though.”
I stepped across to study the image that Jamie had expanded on the screen. The object looked like a large rock that seemed to be glowing with a faintish green aura. As I stood looking over Jamie’s shoulder we both hummed and ha-ad about the arrival’s nature.
By now Jamie had plotted the trajectory and was analysing it’s composition. Eventually she observed.
“It’s not destined to hit the earth but it’s going to pass pretty close. It’ll give the night owls on earth a pretty view as it passes. It seems to be pretty soft and porous on its surface but denser at its core. There might even be some surface fragmentation as it passes between Earth and our moon. Their gravities are bound to stress it as it changes trajectory.”
“So, it doesn’t look as though it’s going to hit the earth.” I offered.
“No. I’m projecting the likely future path now.” Jamie continued. “It looks as though it’ll kink a bit as it deviates then it’ll carry on towards the sun.”
“Into the sun?” I asked.
“Can’t say yet. A lot depends on any loss of mass that may occur from any fragmentation as it passes between earth and the moon. Shall we take a closer look?”
I shrugged somewhat disinterestedly. Asteroids, comets, meteors and the like were somewhat old hat to me. Most invariably plunged into the sun or got ‘swept up’ by Jupiter ‘en passant’ Only a tiny fraction passed those two formidable bodies to land upon Mercury, Venus, us or Mars.
This emerald glowing visitor would give Earth a brief, spectacular display then fade away as it swept on into the sun or took a slingshot and swept around the sun then back into outer space where Jupiter or even Saturn would most likely drag her down with a spectacular series of splashes visible with powerful telescopes from Earth.
“You take a look if you want love.” I agreed. “I want to get on with the logbook before we dock on Earth. Those minerals we found on Titan were interesting and there might be a useful claim to stake.
Having decided to let Jamie study the asteroid, I left her to it and resumed my deliberations.
As Jamie adjusted the course I resumed the tedium of reports and writing up the logbook. An hour later Jamie had adjusted our course and speed to match the asteroid and she was studying the visitor closely. I now joined her at the console and she observed.
“As we are getting closer to the moon and the Earth, it’s starting to shed more and more of the softer outer rock.”
“Is that the core beginning to glow?” I wondered.
“Jamie adjusted the resolution and confirmed it.”
“It’s sort of pulsing. Ooh! What was that?”
I twitched as well, as I felt a sort of wave sweep through my body.
“Whoa! I don’t know. It felt like a sort of dizzy sensation as my stomach flipped.” I replied to Jamie’s question.
“I think we’d better move away from it.” Jamie cautioned nervously and I agreed with her completely as a second, bigger wave of nausea engulfed the pair of us.
I just managed to flip the controls to steer away as a third painful pulse engulfed us and we both collapsed in pain. I was knocked completely unconscious by the power of the pulse but Jamie, being younger and fitter, let out a groan of pain and writhed in her seat where her seatbelt held her safe.
A fourth wave engulfed us but by then I was completely out of it. Fortunately, my last desperate act had saved us from any more hurt and the fifth wave was less painful as our ship swerved away from our parallel course. I learned this from Jamie as I came to, still strapped into my seat.
Our bodies were still beset by cramps and an ague but we could at least still function. Once we could move again, we checked out the ship and found nothing wrong. The only damage was to us, the living tissue.
“I need a drink.” I croaked.
“Tea or coffee?” Jamie asked.
“Water I think. I dunno what those pulse things have done to me.”
Jamie nodded concernedly and while she filled two sippy-beakers, I changed the scanner resolution to inspect the asteroid under a shorter wavelength. Finally we detected the pulses throbbing across the screen below the ultra-violet spectrum but not as dangerous as the X-ray zone.
“What the hell is it?” Jamie wondered nervously.
“I don’t know, but we’re going to have to check ourselves out and stay away from Earth until we’re certain we’re not a risk.”
“Dammit. My sister’s wedding is due next week and I promised to be there.”
“Sorry love. You know the rules,” I shrugged, “it’s fourteen days quarantine.”
“Damn, damn, damn! I was so looking forward to wearing my bride’s-maid’s outfit. She’s the only one in my family who is sympathetic to my gender dysphoria.”
I smiled sympathetically as I took another sip of water, I was not feeling at all well.
“Are you alright Nana?”
“No, I –“ And with that, I passed out.”
When I came to, I was ensconced in my sleeping bag and it took several moments to unfasten the ‘poppers.’ I was feeling sore and stiff with aching joints and a blinding headache. Like a dose of ‘super-flue.’ Cautiously, I extricated my self from the bag and felt a sudden urge to defaceate which forced me to wobble to the loo and relieve myself urgently.
On looking down I was immediately fearful to see that my faeces were green and I let out a nervous involuntary squeak as I called for Jamie. There was no answer,
Before showering, I cleaned myself up and decided to go and check where Jamie was; I found her curled up asleep in her own sleeping bag but breathing heavily and wheezing. There was no good to be done by waking her so I had the shower that my body smell told me I needed. Once refreshed, I cautiously returned to the command console and was pleased to see that Jamie had set the ship on a wide radius orbit of Earth where it circled aimlessly but harmlessly too far to be detected by terrestrial sensors.
‘Good girl.’ I thought to myself as I quickly prepared a meal. I was famished.
The smell of food must have partially woken Jamie because I heard a low groan which prompted me to check her. She was deliriously mumbling in her sleep between groans and gasps so after assuring she wasn’t at death’s door, I left her to carry on sleeping, albeit fitfully.
My next task was to check the ship.
I was shocked to discover that I had been out of it for two days. It was no wonder I had woken up starving. Fortunately, the ship was undamaged but I decided to remain in the orbit Jamie had pre-set until she awoke. It would do me no harm either to give myself a couple more days rest and recouperation before returning to Earth.
After checking out the ship, I stopped by to check Jamie again and found her a little more responsive.
“Up to a cuppa love.”
She eyed me somewhat moodily before finding her voice.
“What happened to us?”
“I dunno darling, I think that meteorite affected us somehow. How ‘re you feeling now?”
“Groggy. I was hit for six!”
“Are you up to eating. I’ve had some toast and coffee, nothing heavy.”
“Please,” she nodded and smiled.
ooo000ooo
After sorting our immediate needs, we settled down to endure our fourteen days self-imposed quarantine and decided to re-visit one of Saturn’s smaller moons. Jamie and I were quite successful as interplanetary prospectors but we kept out activities close to our chests. So, to avoid detection, we did not contact Earth we simply hauled our little ship around and headed on out back to Saturn.
After some desultory prospecting we found little of interest so we set course to return to Earth.
As required, we reconnected to earth’s authorities and quickly learned of some sort of some sort of epidemic. They advised us not to land immediately because the epidemic was spreading rapidly and it was fatal.
After listening to several programmes we learned as much as the authorities knew about the progress of the illness.
Firstly the victims fell ill and became nauseous. This lasted a few hours.
Secondly, the victim went into a coma usually lasting two to three days before their blood turned green.
Thirdly their faeces turned green and this was followed by a rapid deterioration and death. Usually within two days of the first green defaecation. Nobody survived longer than three or four days after the bowel disorder.
Jamie and I exchanged worried looks as she asked me.
“Did your shit turn green?”
“Yes, but that was two weeks ago. It’s been normal now for about ten days.” I replied. “What about you?”
“Same thing. Green faeces for three days then back to normal. I don’t know about the blood though. I haven’t cut myself lately.”
“Your were looking a bit greenish when you went into your coma,” Jamie observed. “I thought it was you just being a bit green around the gills you know, like space sickness.”
“Space sickness! Bloody hell girl, I haven’t been space sick for forty odd years.” Then I noticed Jamie’s complexion in the harsh galley light.
“Talking of greenish hues, you don’t look so clever yourself. You look like the jolly green tranny.”
Jamie turned to look at herself in the hand hygiene wash basin mirror and stared uncertainly.
“Shit, I think you’re right. What do I do?”
“Checking if your blood is green would be a good starting point. I’ll check mine as well.”
We quickly pricked our fingers and stared nervously at the blood.
“Well, it ain’t green.” Jamie sighed with relief.
“Aye! But it isn’t red either, is it?” I frowned.
“Mine’s redder than yours,” Jamie observed, somewhat too superiorly I felt.”
“I wouldn’t mention the blood thing.” I suggested. “They want us to wait out here for a few more days anyway so we can just keep checking our blood every morning.”
Having decided on this tactic, we were secretly happy we did. Within another week, our bloods had returned to a healthy normal red and I declared our ship free of infection to the authorities.
By this time however the whole planet was in a frenzy. Every country had gone into lockdown as the path of the disease’s progression had been firmly established.
A Nausea
B Coma
C Blood turning green
D Finally bodily discharges turning green followed by certain death.
“It’s not looking good for humanity,” Jamie surmised as we debated going to land.
The authorities had given us free pratique and it was up to us whether we wanted to land on Earth or land on one of the extra-terrestrial colonies.
We contacted Earth again to ask if the pathogen had yet been identified and were almost relieved to learn that they thought it was some extra-terrestrial dust or fine particles that had been infected somehow on contact with the Earths’ atmospheric envelope. The chemicals in the dust had somehow mutated an earthly virus that had become deadly to human beings.
On learning this, Jamie and I realised that our little ordeal had exactly mirrored the disease’s progress on Earth but the only difference was that we had both survived. At first we were excited until further reflection told us that we could be held hostage to our blood if we did have the right antibodies. If the virologists could develop a serum from our blood, they would demand that we donate blood constantly and it was a racing certainty that access to our blood would become politicised; or worse, weaponised.
That ‘evening,’ Jamie and I sat for long hours trying to examine all the angles.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 2
© Copyright to BG Taff.
Characters.
Nana Bev Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Jamie and I lounged in our bunks as we discussed the options confronting us.
“I suppose we could just land and not tell anybody about it.” Jamie opined.
I was forced to admit, this seemed to be the easiest and possibly safest option. The problem was that we were not even sure we were absolutely immune to the virus or bacteria or whatever the pathogen was.
“Seems to me you’re right Jamie. We both reckon we’re immune so shall we give it a whirl?”
With little more to be said, Jamie settled in the pilot seat and set course for home.
I had grown fond of Jamie since I’d first met her struggling to shift some heavy crates on a cargo station back on earth. That was several years ago. There had been a spate of thefts and I remembered the incident well. It’s worth re-telling here.
ooo000ooo
“Look girl,” I’d remarked. “Why don’t you use the jack up trolly over there?”
She looked at me with a haunted expression then turned to look at some other handlers smirking at her failing efforts.
“They won’t let me.” She replied quietly as she resumed straining to lift one of the cases.
I turned to see their smirking grins then turned to Jamie again.
“What’s the catch. They’re for general use. I’ve seen plenty of people use them. They’re like supermarket trolleys.”
“There’s issues.” She continued.
“What issues?” I demanded as I took hold of the other end of the case she was struggling with.
“Ask them.”
After securing the case into my ship’s cargo hold I strolled over to the smirking gang.
“What’s the score here. Those trolleys are for general customer use and I’m a customer.”
“For you space-crew, yes that’s okay. But that girl’s a bloke, she’s stealing another man’s job and she can’t do the lifting.”
“Well I don’t give a fuck what she is. You shouldn’t let anybody struggle like that. I’m taking a jack-up and don’t you dare try to stop me.”
A particularly pugnacious looking guy stepped forward to stop me before an older man grabbed his arm.
“Don’t tangle with her. She’s one of our biggest customers.”
“What her?” The pugnacious bully scoffed.
“Yes her. Look at half the labels on the crates and containers and you’ll see the name Taff. That’s her; Beverly Taff. She owns several off-world mines, and most of this stuff is destined for one or the other of her mines.”
“So what’s she doin’ down ‘ere in the cargo bays.” The bully argued.
The older man sighed patiently as he drew breath to explain but I intervened to avoid him having to confront the bully.
“I’m keeping tabs on shit like this. Bullies stopping other people doing their job. Keep doing it boy and you’ll be finding it much harder on the other side of the wire.”
“You can’t threaten me. I’m a card carrier.”
“And I’m an important customer who can take her custom elsewhere. I don’t think Dennis the owner will be enamoured of you if you cost him my custom.”
The bully paled as I unbuttoned the front of my working overall to reveal my space uniform underneath. I wore several hats including a spaceship captain and a mining proprietor. When checking out cargo in the bays I usually covered up my uniform to avoid getting it dirty. My referral to the space depot owner/manager by his first name ‘Dennis,’ had sent a clear message to the bully. ‘Here be dragons!’
With that issue resolved, I told Jamie to collect a jack-up, then I left her to complete loading while I checked my manifest with Dennis. In Dennis’s office I asked about the issue with Jamie.
“Oh, she’s a transsexual and the men tease her a bit.”
“What I saw wasn’t teasing, it was bullying. The kid could have injured herself trying to shift some of those cases.”
“Okay Bev; I’ll have a word with the men.”
“You won’t need to. I told them bluntly, if they want to bully a transgendered kid, I’ll be more than willing to take my custom elsewhere.”
Dennis paled.
“Oh come on Bev! We’ve been together since forever. I’ve never let you down or delayed a cargo.”
“I know that Den, and you know that, but that bully doesn’t know that. Just tell him that you nearly lost my custom thanks to his bullying and the tran’s kid should be safe.”
“Cheers Bev. You had me worried for a moment.”
“You needn’t Den; as you say, we’ve been together since forever.”
With the yard politics resolved we shared a coffee as we discussed my future ambitions. Dennis had been the only guy to stick by me when my starting plans had come unstuck and I wasn’t about to betray him now. Eventually, my prospecting had become very successful but I still preferred the old prospecting life. It may not have involved a mule a pick and shovel anymore but I still liked the independence of wandering where my suspicions and knowledge took me from moon to moon and planet to planet.
After shooting the breeze for half the morning I had to go into town to sort some business with the bank. I checked the cargo that Jamie had stowed in the hold and found her sitting on a crate eating some sandwiches away from the other men.
“You’ve done a good job kid. Why haven’t you stowed this one?”
“It’s been broached. I was waiting for you to come so I could tell you.”
I studied the crate then asked.
“Where. The packaging seems intact.”
“The weight was wrong so I lifted the crate right up with the fork jack. It’s been broached from underneath.”
“Show me.” I asked.
She promptly lifted the crate with the forklift truck and a gaping hole revealed that a drill head had been removed. This was no ordinary theft. The three coned drilling head had industrial diamond teeth and it cost a bomb.
“When did you discover it.”
“When I lifted it with the forklift. I couldn’t get the fork blades under the crate because the spacer skids were missing so I trailed the fork jack over beside it to get a compression purchase. I asked one of the others to drive the fork blades under the crate once I’d tipped the crate up but they were disinclined. I had to slide a couple of two by fours under the crate to make a void then I manoeuvred the forklift under the crate. It was creaking because whoever broached the crate had damaged the crate’s integrity. The crate’s about to fall apart.”
“When did this crate arrive in the depot?”
“You’ll have to ask Mr Godfrey the foreman. I don’t get over to reception much. They keep me down here in loading.”
“Thank you girl. Just wait here and guard the crate.”
She made herself comfortable on her crate and took another sandwich from her box while I crossed to the depot warehouse. The foreman came out to meet me. He looked worried but I wasted no time on niceties.
“The crate with the drill heads. One of the heads is missing.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. The kid discovered it when she went to collect it for loading.”
“You’d better check with her then.”
“I have. She says the crate was broached when she went to lift it. I’m going to speak to Dennis. This is serious.”
He was about to reply but I gave him no opportunity. Instead I returned immediately to Dennis Potter’s office and explained what I’d learned. As we returned to the loading dock I asked Dennis about Jamie.
“How long’s she been working for you?”
“’Bout nine months. She’s attending an adult literary course run by the education authority. She’s not dumb, just got a bad start, being tranny and all.”
“I thought that sort of shit was sorted by now.”
“D’you reckon,” Dennis replied.
“Well I thought so.”
“You don’t get out much do you Bev?”
“If you mean I don’t socialise much; you ‘d be right. You know why.”
“Yeah, I remember a skinny, tall, willowy trans kid turning up with a junked spaceship, offering to take stuff to Mars for a song.”
“Yeah and you took the offer.”
“I was just starting freighting myself and you were cheap.”
“Yeah. We all had to start some place. So what d’ you intend to do about the drill head? It’s bloody expensive but more importantly, it’s a ‘just-in-time’ item for the mine extension on Europa.”
“I find it hard to believe that one of my staff might have stolen it.”
“Well wherever it’s gone, I’m still going to have to replace it so you’d better inform your insurance company. The first place you’ll have to start is yard reception. They must have checked it in. It’s a high value item.”
Dennis frowned; he knew I was right. The damming proof that the drill head had been stolen in his yard was the broken timbers from the packing crate on the high security warehouse floor. He turned to young Jamie.
“Did you notice anything unusual, anybody hanging around?”
Jamie swallowed her last bite of her sandwich, somewhat nervously I noticed.
“No Mr Potter. I only noticed the damage when I came to load it on the forklift. The timber skids were dumped behind the other cases for the other consignment to Mars. That’s why I couldn’t get the forks under the case.”
“Who has access to this warehouse?” I asked Dennis.
“Everybody. The staff are in and out all the time.”
I moved closer to Dennis and spoke quietly in his ear.
“That kid looks frightened. I’d like to speak to her privately, without anybody noticing.”
“I can arrange that. I’ve got to go down the police station to report the crime and I can take the girl as a witness. I’ll have to report the theft anyway, before I can process my insurance claim.
You can speak to the girl off-site. We can make it look as though Jamie’s being arrested and blamed.”
“Sounds like a plan; have you any suspicions as to ‘who-dunnit’?”
“Yes, but -.” Dennis pursed his lips to caution me as he called the yard foreman over and explained.
“Nothing is to leave this yard until I get back. I’ll lock the goods gates and only pedestrians can leave.”
Godfrey nodded and we left for the police station. Once inside, I had a good chance to speak privately to Jamie where I explained why I had escorted her to the police station.
“You seemed nervous in the yard. Why? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
Jamie nodded fearfully.
“Go on.” I encouraged her.
“It’s Bull; the big guy who tried to stop you taking the jack-up trolley.”
“And?” I pressed.
“He’s a new guy. Only been here a couple of months but he’s got a freight-handling union card. He’s been in the union for years so that makes him senior to me and some of the other guys.”
“I knew all about the unionisation of the space docks. There were good and bad aspects to the situation but by and large there were trade-offs for both shippers and handlers.
“So? What else aren’t you telling me?”
“Well, -“ she hesitated seemingly even afraid to speak inside the police station.
“Go on.” I encouraged her.
“Well, - I think he’s the one doing the pilfering.”
“It’s a bit more than just pilfering Jamie. Those drill bits cost thousands of credits if not tens of thousands.”
She paled slightly and kept looking at the door behind me. I asked her bluntly.
“What are you afraid of girl?”
“Bull is stirring up trouble and trying to get people accused of stealing. I’m sure he’s working for the mob and they are trying to muscle in on Mr Potter’s freight business.”
“Have you any proof?” I demanded.
“Nothing definite but several times when I’m eating my packed lunches in the warehouse I seen him sniffing around and reading the labels on the crates. He doesn’t know I’m there cos I’m in and out between the cases at all times and I’ve got keys to the two pedestrian doors. I have them because I’m constantly showing people when and where they have to collect stuff. Mr Potter and Foreman Godfrey gave me the job cos’ I’ve a good memory.”
“Has other stuff gone missing?” I asked.
“Small stuff, - high value, small stuff. Special tools and instruments and such like.”
“Did you report them?”
“I didn’t know. They were reported missing by the consignees upon arrival off-planet. Any evidence in the yard was long gone.”
“Okay tell me all you know and what you suspect.”
Jamie frowned then opened up with her suspicions.
“It’s always high value stuff but stuff that’s easily sellable, or it was at first. That’s why Mr Godfrey the foreman thought it was just opportunist thieving. When I thought back about the thefts, I noticed they were always from one part of the warehouse were high value stuff is locked up. I checked the security cage and this morning, I noticed that one security panel tucked away at the back behind the bigger, heavier cases had become loose.”
“Have you told Mr Potter or Mr Godfrey.”
“Not yet. I haven’t had time and I don’t know who might be in on the scam.”
“Well, I doubt that it’s Dennis. We’ll go back to the yard via the electronics outlet on the Portway. I’ve got to stop there anyway to report the theft to the insurance company now we’ve got a crime number off the police.”
After finalising our reports to the plod, we picked up the tiny security cameras and located them discretely to get clear views inside the warehouse. With that job done I spoke privately to Dennis.
“I Think you should have a spot check on all vehicles leaving the yard.”
“What? Tonight?” Dennis wondered.
“Especially tonight. The yard’s been in lockdown since the discovery. It’s a chunky piece of kit and difficult to hide.”
“It could have already left the yard but somehow, but I doubt it. Jamie was here all morning and the yard went into lockdown at ten thirty. It’s got to be on site unless somebody has somehow passed it over the fence, and the thing weighs over two hundred kilos. I think it will be in a car boot (trunk), so I’ve invited a couple of police to stop every car leaving the site tonight. We don’t have the legal authority to stop cars on the public highway and inside the compound they haven’t technically committed a theft.
Dennis agreed with me and the trap was set.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 3
© Copyright to BG Taff.
Characters.
Nana Bev Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
After the trap was set I went into my modest apartment in the gay village in the heart of the city. At least I was relatively safe there. Once home, I checked my mail then popped down to my regular little café to finish my dinner before calling into my regular night-club.
It was always good to touch bases with regular friends and I was relaxing with them when I was slightly surprised to see Jamie appear. She was asking the doorman something and he pointed up towards the little mezzanine balcony where I was sat with my friends.
Jamie looked up and smiled so I waved her up then watched as she stopped at the bar to buy a drink before ascending the stairs. As she took her seat at the table she spoke quietly.
“They caught him.” She informed me.
“Was it Bull?” I asked.
“Yes. It was hidden in the tool locker behind the cab of his pickup.”
“Did he connect you to his capture. I hope you weren’t watching or something.”
“No, I was just getting my bike from the bike-shed when the police were bringing him back to Mt Potter’s office. He was taken up to the office as I was riding out of the gates same as I do every night.”
“So no association then.”
“No. The theft was common knowledge all around the depot and the police were stopping every car. Bull’s just a dumb bully. He was stupid to try and sneak it out that same evening and bingo!”
“He must have got a buyer for it.” I opined.
“The police are probably following up that angle, but I just kept out of it and cycled home. Are you coming down to dance?”
Several of my friends decided to join us and we bundled down onto the dance floor. That night she so enjoyed herself that she missed the last bus home. Consequently, she slept over with me.
As Dennis had opined; Jamie proved to be quite a bright kid and that night was to be the start of a long friendship that culminated in her resigning from her warehouse job and becoming my ‘girl Friday’ cum first mate as my prospecting endeavours took off.
That’s basically a potted history of our long friendship. Now back to the pandemic.
ooo000ooo
We had decided to keep our suspected immunity to the virus a secret. The asteroid dust that had been shed by the asteroid had eventually filtered down to earth where it had mutated via various stages and agencies to become severely infections and lethal. When we returned that day we had to undergo some severe health checks before they allowed us to step through the newly intensified immigration procedures.
As visitors returning to Earth from space, we were deemed to not have been exposed to the earthbound virus so the checks were minimal and we stepped through immigration after simply filling a questionnaire while having our temperatures checked. They didn’t even check our bloods. We were given a face mask and an advisory booklet telling us it was compulsory to get ourselves checked if we suspected any sort of infection.
After clearing health and immigration, Jamie and I went home to what was now a comfortable luxury apartment in the gay quarter. Tired from the voyage we had simply crashed out in each other’s arms like grand-mother and grand-daughter in our luxury bed.
The following morning we got our first experience of the lock-down rules as we wend shopping to restock our larder.
“Bloody hell Babe’s!” Jamie giggled. “We should be wearing our space suites. Just look at it.”
And look at it we did. People were religiously keeping their distances as they shopped, while everybody was wearing some version of a ‘bio-hazard’ suit that reflected their wealth. All shops required evidence of recent testing and we were forced to take a test that very morning before venturing into any public indoor space.
Reluctantly, we presented ourselves at a testing station where the testers asked a string of questions. Fortunately our newly arrived status exempted us from a blood test but Jamie and I both knew that at some time we were going to be caught. After a fixed number of tests and so many days of public exposure, everybody was required to present themselves for blood testing.
That evening we put on our newly purchased hazard suits and ventured down to the village.
Every venue had a haz-test station at the door and we had to present our mobile phones to be checked. Naturally, we had chosen our favourite club and we were relieved to find some of our friends sitting at our favoured table but still keeping the regulation distance apart. After buying our drinks separately, Jamie and I soon joined them.
It became quickly apparent that some of our friends had already succumbed to the virus. The mood around the table was not good.
“You’d be better off staying on Mars,” Betty suggested.
“You may be right.” I was forced to agree. “But we’d go crazy living in a space suite every time we go out. These haz suites are irksome enough and as for going to the loo, well!” I expostulated.
“Where are Charlotte and Lucy?” Jamie asked fearfully.
“You just missed them,” Betty replied. “They tested positive last night and they’re in the isolation area down the south side of town. They’ll have a couple of weeks then that’s it.”
“Are we allowed to visit them?” Jamie asked hopefully.
“Visit them!!” Betty almost shrieked. “If you’re contemplating suicide babe’s then yes go ahead! You might be allowed to say hello through the fence.”
Jamie’s face paled more from despondency than fear then; after a couple of drinks, she wandered out onto a very lonely dance floor. I watched her going through a couple of desultory motions but it was nothing like the effervescent ‘jack-in-a-box’ that usually crackled around the floor. She returned to sit with us then pleaded to go home.
Back at our apartment she pleaded with me.
“Will you come with me to the isolation area?”
“What good will it do?”
“I want to see them. Before they die.”
“That doesn’t do any good.” I argued. “I think I’ve got a better idea.”
“What?” Jamie wondered.
“I think we should donate some of our blood to them, - secretly mind.”
“How. The doctors would have a fit.”
“If I can swing it as a spaceship captain, I should be able to obtain some medical equipment to re-equip our medical cabinet onboard ‘Digger’
(Digger was the name of our spaceship. Somewhat prosaic I’ll confess, but self-explanatory.)
The following morning I dropped by the ship chandlery and we soon had what I thought I would need.
“Are you sure this will work? Jamie asked nervously.
“I’ve given emergency blood transfusions love. I had to do Space-captain’s medical course.”
“Will it hurt?”
“A bit. I’ll give you a local anaesthetic.”
“So doing, I soon had a good half pint of Jamie’s blood then I mixed it with the medical plasma to make a sufficiently viscous to flow down a wide hypodermic needle.”
“What’s that for?” Jamie asked.
“We can find out if our blood really does work as an antidote. If we can get Charlotte and Lucy to accept this blood they might be cured and we get to know if it works without the authorities learning of us. Betty told me it’s pretty much chaos down on the lines. The authorities try to maintain separation but they’re overwhelmed.”
“But if it does work, Charlotte and Lucy will know and they’ll be forced to blab.”
“I’m hoping by then, we’ll be out in space and I’ll have some sort of plan; - or you will.”
“Don’t look at me Babes.” Jamie shrugged. “That still puts us at risk. They might not be able to make a serum or vaccine from our blood, then what?”
“I don’t know Jamie. I honestly don’t know. This is ‘seat-of-pants’ stuff. I still don’t know if the blood works.” Charlotte and Lucy are simply stage one.”
“Okay. Shall we go there now?”
“Sooner the better.” I agreed. “I’ve no idea how long the blood keeps.”
ooo000ooo
Within the hour, we had reached the huge suburb that had been ring-fenced as the isolation area for the city. Once we reached the security gates I spoke to the guard over the intercom. After giving Charlotte and Lucy’s names and as much information as we knew the guard eventually located them and asked us.
“What have you got for them?”
“Food mainly, some changes of clothes and stuff.”
“Okay. The access ports are down that corridor just place the stuff on the trays and your friends can collect it.”
“What about those bio-hazard suites with the air supplies.” Jamie asked.
“If you are prepared to wait a few weeks, you can buy one. Or you can use the ordinary hazard suits. They’re fairly effective if you’re careful!”
“We’ll take those, Jamie declared.
“Very well missy. There’s two sterilised suits in that cubicle. If you get changed, we’ll dowse you in disinfectant and call your friends to access port twenty-seven.”
Having cleared the first security hurdle, Jamie and I got changed and took our food parcel to section twenty-seven. There we waited until Charlotte and Lucy appeared red eyed and frightened.
“Who are you?” Lucy asked because they could not recognise us inside our bio suits.
“It’s Jamie and Nana Bev. We’ve got some stuff for you. Food and stuff.”
“Oh thanks. The stuff in here’s bloody awful.”
“Yeah, well shut up and listen. Nana here’ might have something better than food. We might even help you get better.”
“Oh stop that bullshit!” Charlette cursed. “There’s no cure yet. We’re fucking done for!!”
Jamie got equally angry.
“Listen dickhead! We’ve risked fucking everything to get this blood so far. We can’t promise you anything but at least fucking try!”
“Blood? Who’s blood?”
“My fucking blood." Jamie revealed then explained. "You know Nana and I are monogamous and we don't share body fluids; so give it a fucking try.”
“Is this safe Nana?” Charlotte asked me.
“I don’t know kid. But you’re dead anyway if this doesn’t work. There’s no known cure.”
Tears came to Charlotte’s eyes and I couldn’t help but feel for her, but I didn’t have much time. Firstly I removed the clumsy gloves and disinfected my hands thoroughly before slipping on some surgical gloves that Jamie was holding open for me. The disinfectant jell made the surgical glove slip on quickly and I grabbed Charlotte’s arm.
“This might hurt a bit but don’t move your arm.” I instructed as Jamie clamped on Charlotte’s arm.
Quickly I inserted the needle into a prominent vein and carefully injected about fifty cc of blood plasma mix. Charlotte stared mesmerised while Lucy fussed unnecessarily. Jamie told her to be still and not to attract attention.
Within five minutes, I had transfused fifty cc of blood plasma mix into both our friends and I hurriedly cleaned up while Jamie dressed their puncture wounds.
“Is this really going to work?” Charlotte asked.
“We don’t know.” Jamie replied honestly but look at this.”
She pricked her finger and her blood still carried a slightly greenish brown hue.
“See! Our blood’s been like this for nearly six months. According to the virus rules, Nana and I should be long dead, but we’re not. Ask yourselves why!”
“When will you be coming again? We’ve got two other trans friends in here.”
“We can’t say. We’ve got an urgent cargo for Lunar base Delta. We won’t be back for about four days. Most importantly, don’t say a fucking word to anybody. Just tell your friends to turn up when we come back. It’ll possibly be Thursday or Friday.”
Finally Jamie added the last word.
“If you feel sick just go and lie down. Don’t go to any doctors. When Nan and I got walloped we were ill for a couple of days so expect to feel lousy for a couple of days. Cheerio and say fuck all to anybody.”
With these meagre words of comfort. Jamie and I left them our food parcel and skedaddled. That evening we were lunar-bound.”
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 4
© Copyright to Beverly Taff.
Characters.
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Real girl friends of Jamie, Charlotte and Lucy.
Chapter 4.
Our trip to Lunar base four was incident free. We delivered our cargo then loaded some used equipment along with a small consignment of ore and one passenger returning to her family on earth. Her name was Doctor Williams and she was a virologist who had been recalled to earth to assist with researches into the Verna Spiro Type one Virus. So named because the identified virus turned blood a greenish hue and the virus was a spiral type similar to syphilis spirochetes.
Whilst working on the moon, Doctor Williams had been communicating at length with the terrestrial authorities and she was fully genned up on the virus.
On the journey home, Doctor Williams gave us a long chat about the virus and answered many questions that we purveyed as typically innocent questions that any concerned, intelligent individual might ask. By the time we landed earthside again. Jamie and I were also pretty clued up.
By way of a thankyou to Doctor Williams, we gave her a brand-new bio suite from our newly purchased stock and she was eternally grateful.
Our obvious bio-suit precautions caused the health authorities to give us a bye on the blood tests and our antibodies didn’t show up in the lateral-flow tests. There was a more intensive flow test but it was expensive and only used if a person was suspected to be infected.
By hook and by crook we got through the health checks and went straight to see Charlotte and Lucy. They were still showing the ravages of the initial reaction to infection but they were in a very buoyant mood when we met them.
“You two look happy.” I observed.
“Our temperatures are normal. That’s completely at odds with the normal disease pathway. We should be feeling really sick by now. Have you got more of that blood stuff?”
“Yes, but.”
“But what?”
“You and your friends play dumb. You don’t know anything, OK?”
“You can bet your bottom buck we’ll say nothing.”
“Right, go and get your friends we haven’t got much time.”
“There’s no hurry anymore. They’ve relaxed the visiting rules because very few people are visiting.” Charlotte explained as Lucy dashed off to get their friends.
Lucy returned with two desperately sick girls who eyed us feverishly. Both Jamie and I eyed them wonderingly as we wondered if we were too late. Lucy explained that the two girls only expected to live a few more days as their illnesses were following a typical infection pathway. They were both weak and it was an easy job to locate their malnutritional veins in their pipe-stem arms.
“Is this going to work?” Charlotte asked Jamie as I speedily transfused the blood.
“It should do.” Jamie encouraged. “It’s worked for you two, hasn’t it?”
“But they’re so far gone. You caught me and Lucy much earlier.”
“Trust to the gods.” I added as I quickly treated the second girl. “What are their names?”
“Rose and Violet. They’re twins but not identical.”
I stood up and packed my transfusion kit away under my puffer jacket then I explained to the sickly pair.
“Eat as much as you can. The food we’ve brought is fresh so if you do recover and anybody asks, say you think it was something in the assortment of vegetables and fruit we brought. What ever happens, you must eat lots of food, you’ll need it to get strong.”
Rose and Violet nodded feebly while Charlotte and Lucy piled all the fresh food we had brought onto a supermarket trolly they had brought anticipating our generosity.
“Thanks Jamie,” Lucy intoned as I wrapped up my needles and syringes.”
“What about Nana Bev?” Jamie scolded Lucy quietly. “She’s the one who dreamt this up. Let’s just hope it works.”
“Thanks Nana!” Charlotte quickly remedied Lucy’s mistake.
“We’ll be back on Monday,” I explained, “ostensibly to bring fresh food but secretly to check up on you. What ever you do, don’t bloody tell anybody or they’ll be after us like flies on shit.”
“But if it cures people, shouldn’t you tell the authorities?” Lucy asked.
“How much blood d’you think I’ve bloody got!” Jamie screeched. “Nana Bev’s already pumped two hundred cc into you four.”
“Hush girl!” I whispered hoarsely. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Sorry Nana.” Jamie apologised as she gave the four friends a baleful warning glare and put her finger to her lips. “I’ll be back!”
Once clear of the isolation area, Jamie and I returned to our apartment and prepared a meal. The obvious question now hung like the sword of Damocles over our dinner.
“So; if they do get better, what then?” Jamie asked.
“Well if their blood carries the antibodies, hopefully, they’ll use it to design a vaccine.”
“They haven’t had much success yet and you heard what Doctor Williams said. If they don’t make a breakthrough in a year, this virus is so virulent it’ll finish humanity. Unless we all live in space suits.”
“I dunno’ Jamie! I’ve lived in a bloody space suite for most of my working life.”
“Yeah! But you’ve never had sex in one!”
I tried to suppress a snigger but it was hard. Jamie could always lighten a room. We chatted at length and decided that we would eventually somehow let it be known that there was a tiny supply of antidote. The next step was to protect ourselves from some sort of medical imprisonment on the basis of emergency rules or some such lunacy.
ooo000ooo
The next anticipated development was not long in coming. Jamie and I had returned from a months prospecting in our happiest hunting grounds, namely the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
After a final supervisory check on our natal mining investment on Europa, we had loaded a good cargo of rare earth metals that had been smelted at the mine. Two of the miners were taking home leave so they travelled with us on Digger as passengers. We separated on arrival home and they would make their own arrangements to return to the mine.
When we arrived on earth we quickly learned that four victims of the virus had seemingly recovered and it was causing reverberations around the planet. Fortunately, during their isolation they had received several family visits and the authorities had initially researched that avenue.
Additional to family visits, the girls Rose and Violet had received several visits from a charity group and the authorities were on a wild goose chase trying to follow them up. Jamie and I exchanged amused smirks but we both knew that time was running out.
That first evening home, we chose not to go clubbing. The mood on the street seemed tense as people were still under the lethal threat while fake news was flying thick and fast about the miracle cure that the government was hiding. The identity of the four miracle patients was obviously being kept secret and this served to further generate fake news.
The fact the all four patients were reported to be LGBT did not serve our community well, and several protest marches had turned violent in other foreign cities as transphobic and homophobic prejudices gained free rein amidst the bigoted, religious and right-wing communities.
The fact that the LGBT people were the ones who had recovered was totally lost in the frenzied propaganda of fake news. Neither Jamie nor I could make sense of that whirligig reasoning.
Finally, we repaired to bed and spooned together before eventually getting to sleep.
ooo000ooo
It was the driving rain that eventually dragged us both from our slumbers and as the wind moaned around our apartment building, the rain hammered against the windows. As one squall hammered a particularly heavy crash of rain drops against our window, Jamie and I instinctively cuddled tighter under our duvet to savour the warmth of our bed.
“I’m staying here.” Jamie giggled as her arm snaked under my breast.
“Bloody good idea.” I replied as I pressed my butt into her tummy.
And so we did, at least until nature called and our stomachs protested.
As we ate our brunch we mused over our previous night’s chat and decided we needed a lot more information before venturing any information.
“We should try and speak to that Doctor Williams. She seemed pretty genned up on stuff.” Jamie offered.
For want of a better idea I agreed with her.
“Did you get any contact details.” I asked Jamie.
“Only that she was going to meet some government people down in London.”
“Well, that’s where we start then.”
“We’d be better checking Digger’s cargo passenger manifest. Her details will be on our passenger immigration declaration.”
Jamie’s eyes widened at this revelation.
“You’re not just a pretty face are you Nana.”
“Put it down to long experience kid. How many passenger manifest lists do you think I have filled in during my years in space?”
A quick computer link to my company office soon revealed all Doctor Williams’s personal details. She lived in a cottage in the Cotswolds not far from Oxford.
“Right, so how do we make contact without exposing ourselves?” Jamie demanded.
“We take some blood and leave it on her doorstep with a note. I’ve got all the details of our bloods so we could leave two samples and simply disappear. To make contact then we simply send a letter and repeat the password on the bottles and a burner phone number.”
“Let’s do it then. I fancy a trip into the country.” Jamie enthused.
The next morning found us near Oxford casing a delightful cottage nestled in a deep hollow.
“I there anybody in,” Jamie wondered.
“Not at this time if she’s working. There’s no car there.”
“We should come back later.”
“It’ll be dark by five. We could leave her a note on her doorsteps front and back then see if it’s her.”
Okay, who keeps lookout, we’ll have to hide the car well. There’s a hotel in the village, we could eat dinner there.
Having laid out our plan we made our preparations then waited. At four o’clock, Jamie put the letters on both steps and sat back. By six she phoned me.
“She’s taken the bait and left for the hotel. I’ve left the bottles of blood on her step; she can’t miss them.”
Moments after Jamie closed our connection, my phone rang.
“Who are you and what do you want.”
I texted a simple message.
“The blood with the antidote is on your front doorstep.”
With that, I closed the phone and rendezvoused with Jamie at a remote junction some half a mile from her cottage. We were back home by midnight.
The following morning I went food shopping, while Jamie cleaned the apartment. We met for lunch at our favourite day-time café in the village.
“Did you ditch the phone?” Jamie checked.
“It’s at the bottom of the river Stour. I ditched yesterday it while you took a wee.”
She smiled and gave me a hug, more from excitement than affection.
“Are we going to the club tonight.”
“Why not?” I concurred. “Ball’s in their court now.”
“If we get another burner phone, we could try and call Charlotte.”
“Not yet. Not until we know she’s released and free. Don’t call the others either.”
“Why?” Jamie frowned.
“Charlotte’s the only one who can keep her mouth shut. The less the authorities know about us, the stronger our bargaining position.”
Jamie shrugged as she conceded my point. Then she grinned hopefully.
“Are you still up for clubbing tonight.”
“Yes. You’d best get ready.”
That night we relaxed for the first time and noticed a distinct mood of optimism amongst our friends. The news about the four LGBT recoveries was beginning to take effect amongst us.
“D’ you think it’s anything to do with the gay gene, or the trans’ gene?” Was the question on everybody’s lips.
Jamie and I just shared discreet knowing smiles.
Antibodies 5
© Copyright. Beverly Taff.
Characters.
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Real girl friends of Jamie, Charlotte and Lucy.
Dr Williams Virologist
Chapter 5
The following morning, Jamie and I were casually shopping somewhat disinterestedly through the city centre when Jamie suddenly stopped, paused, then started walking backwards comically to fetch up at a smallish shop window that we had just passed.
“What? I demanded as I turned around, wondering what she was up to.”
She just wagged her head sideways and intimated the numerous electronic devices in the window display. Her raised eyebrow demanded that I follow into the little shop, so for want of anything better to do, I followed her in.
Once inside, we saw two young oriental lads who were fiddling with phones as we fetched up at their counter.
Jamie, being very attractive, immediately attracted their attention and they both turned to serve her. I grinned at the dramatic display of testosterone as they simultaneously asked.
“Yes Miss?”
“My Nan want’s a voice synthesiser,” Jamie declared and the one nearest the display stepped victoriously to pick out several models.
We tried out several models until I was satisfied with the effects that made me sound like a basso proffundo.
“This’ll do, and a cheap burner phone please.”
The other boy quickly reached for one and we made our purchases then left. Outside in the park, I dialled Doctor Williams.
“Hello, Doctor Williams?” I spoke in my deeply distorted bass voice.
There was a long pause before she answered.
“Who is this please?”
“I delivered the blood to you yesterday afternoon. Have you tested it yet?”
Her flustered answer came back.
“I- I- Not yet we’re still testing it. Who is this?”
“Let’s just say the omega girl or the it girl.”
I replied in the incongruously deep distorted voice.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I deposited the blood sample on your cottage door-step yesterday.”
“How can I know that. Prove it!”
“The Passwords on the bottles. I can give you them.”
“What! Do it,- do it now. This is no time to be playing games.”
I gave her the passwords followed by the string of random numbers I had written on the two labelled bottles. There was a deafening silence.
“Who are you?” she almost croaked as her voice cracked.
“From the shock in your voice, I take it you’ve already learned some stuff about the blood samples.”
“Yes. The donors are almost certain to be immune to Verdaspiro 1.”
“Yes. I can confirm. I’m immune. So is the other donor!”
“Who are you!!?” Doctor Williams almost screeched down the phone.
“That’s not important.” I countered. “What I want to know is if you can derive a vaccine or serum from the samples we sent?”
“Why d’you want to know about that.”
“Cos we’ve only got so much blood to give.”
“Ah. Yes! Of course. Well; given time, we should be able to develop some sort of vaccine. Receiving your blood samples has taken us forward a huge step. Is it possible to supply more?”
“Only as much as a normal blood transfusion would allow.” I continued. “So for two people, that’s about half a litre per donor every six to eight weeks. According to the blood, transfusion bank rules.”
There was a long pregnant silence which told me that Doctor Williams was probably consulting with colleagues.
“My colleagues here tell me that’ those are the normal delivery and donation terms so when can we meet you to discuss them?”
“We don’t meet.” I told them bluntly. “The blood is delivered anonymously, then the delivery agency disappears again.”
“But there’s a whole host of complications and unknowns to address.” She complained.
“I’m sure there is, but there’s also a whole host of dangers facing us, the main one is being kidnapped and exploited by some other foreign government agency; or worse, some exploitative gang or cult.
“I don’t have to tell you that you’d be well protected.” She tried to sound convincing but Jamie and I were in full agreement about staying anonymous.
“Yes; by keeping us well locked up.” Jamie interrupted. “No thank you; we stay anonymous and we stay free.
“That is going to be difficult for you and us. Is that somebody else speaking?”
“”Yes. I'm the second donor and we understand the difficulties.” Jamie finished. “You’ll have to take it or leave it.”
“If you remain hidden, how will we keep in contact?” Dr Williams pressed.
“We call you.” I instructed them. ”Don’t call us unless there’s a serious emergency. We’ll advise you when we’re making a delivery then tell you where after the drop.
If or when, you do eventually derive a functional vaccine," I continued, "call us immediately and we’ll supply extra blood immediately. We’re not inhumane monsters.”
While Doctor Williams digested our terms, Jamie added one last rider.
“Do not try to drag our identities out of the girls Charlotte and Lucy or Rose and Violet. If you try, we will immediately cease to donate blood.”
The silence at Doctor Williams’s end was deafening.
The following afternoon, to show good will, Jamie and I delivered half a litre of blood each. Then we instructed Doctor Williams where to find it. That following evening we called her after working hours. She must have had the phone attached to her headphones because she answered immediately.
“Did you get the blood?” I asked.
“Yes thank you.”
“And are the four girls walking free?”
“Tomorrow morning we’ll release them. We’ve had to alert them to reinforce the privacy and secrecy issues.”
“Good. By the way, is their blood producing useable antibodies?” I checked.
“Not that we can discern so far. They’ve agreed to come in for tests every month so that we can check.”
“We’ve no objections to that,” I replied, “anything to lift the burden from us.”
“By the way,” Jamie added as she nodded affirmation to me. “We suggest you use a bit of the second delivery to vaccinate yourselves. You have our joint permission to do that.”
I smiled approval at Jamie’s words. Firstly, Jamie had laid claim to our right to determine who to, and how the vaccine should be administered. It was only right that the team now tasked with combatting the Verdospiro 1 virus, should at least be immunised.
ooo000ooo
After having completed our philanthropic duties, Jamie and I congratulated ourselves (somewhat conceitedly I must confess,) and then we took off on a walking holiday. Two weeks later, we were reporting to Dennis Potter’s freight yard to collect another cargo of mining equipment.
Dennis was glad to see us for there was a mountain of paperwork concerning my various interplanetary interests.
“I wish you’d warn me when you’re buggering off on holiday. Look at this bloody pile!” Dennis complained.
“My company, my liberty,” I grinned as I ploughed through the correspondence.
Outside, Jamie was supervising the loading and it was early evening before we finally lifted off, firstly for Mars, then next to Jupiter’s moons.
The voyage proved to be a typically normal venture. We delivered to Mars without incident then to Europa, -one of Jupiter’s moons-.
With the outward-bound voyage completed we got orders for loading on Ganymede and that gave us several options to choose our own route home. There were several moons plus Mars and Jupiter coming into conjunction with our preferred route home so we had a choice of fuel-saving ‘sling-shot’ options and that meant money saved.
As Jamie mused over our return Journey I could hear her mind clunking away so I asked what was on it, - her mind that is-.
“I was wondering about that asteroid. You know the green-eyed beasty that irradiated us.”
“What about it?” I asked.
“Well if that thing did ‘slingshot around the sun', we could check her course, and we might be able to locate her.”
“To what end?” I asked, suspecting some hairbrained idea. (Jamie was good at those.)
“Well, if old ‘green eye’ fucked with our bodies, we might be able to find her again and establish her exact course. Then we could organise a trip with a passenger ship to make another rendezvous and fly-by with a couple of hundred other passengers aboard. If they reacted like we did, it would expand the bank of blood donors by irradiating them like us.”
“Fuck me Jamie, that’s such a crazy idea that it might work. How would the additional radiation affect us though? Overdosing and all that?”
“We could sit in our own ‘lead-lined’ cabin while the conjunction occurs.”
“Yeah. That’d sit well with the other passengers,” I mocked.
“Not if it’s explained right.” Jamie pressed. “We describe exactly how we approached and how long we were exposed to old green eye. On top of that, we only ask for volunteers and precisely explain the known risks.”
“What about the authorities.” I observed.
“What about them?” Jamie countered. “They’re just as desperate as everybody else to cure this bug.”
“It would mean, we have to come clean and reveal our identities.”
“Hey! If it means I can walk down the street without worrying and go clubbing and dancing again without clumping around in a hazard suit, then bring it on.”
Jamie dancing in her hazard suite!!!!!
I had to smile. The last image of Jamie trying to dance like a ‘jack-in-a-box’ in the hazard suit had drawn a totally involuntary belly laugh from me. Her idea of an ‘interplanetary radiation cruise,’ might not be all that crazy.
Bearing in mind, we had choices of our route home and little time difference between the journeys, I agreed with Jamie insofar as it might serve to try and locate exactly where the asteroid was and the likely route it was taking.
Fortunately, we had all the mathematical, navigational parameters immediately to hand in Digger’s electronic log. It was an easy task to determine the likely course the asteroid had taken after our encounter but the problem was the uncertain factors caused by the asteroid’s intersection of the Earth’s and it’s lunar satellite. We could not determine exactly how much its’ track had ‘kinked’ between the Earth and the Moon after we had parted ways.
The slightest deviation in the few tens of thousands of miles close to Earth and the Moon would extrapolate into millions of miles of dislodgement after a journey of some hundreds of millions of miles, away out near Jupiter or Saturn’s orbits.
I left Jamie to do the maths ‘by hand’ then compared her figures with the computer predictions. They proved to be satisfactorily comparable and Jamie smirked with satisfaction. She had passed the complexities of space navigation and was now proven fit to fly and navigate her own ship. I took a bottle of champagne from my locker and we shared a toast.
“Cheers Babe’s. You’ve come a long way from once being a spaceship docker in a freight yard.” I congratulated her.
“All down to you Nana,” she responded as we clinked glasses.
I squinted as the ship altered to its homeward course. Despite the distance, the sun still had enough glare to dazzle me before the visor automatically shaded. Then we settled down to contemplate our second rendezvous with ‘green-eye’,( our private name for the asteroid that had benignly changed our metabolisms.)
A day later, we were both searching for ‘green-eye’ when we spotted her via our radiation sensors. They had been attuned to maximum sensitivity and we actually detected the asteroid on our ‘black scanner’ rather than the conventional radar scanner.
“Would you look at that.” Jamie tapped the screen with a crooked finger. “It’s pulsing like a miniature pulsar.”
“Yeah. It’s weird. Those were the pulsing waves that made us feel sick. The trouble is, we won’t be able to get close enough to find out why.” I added.
“Well, my calculations were pretty much spot on Nana. So what now?”
“Well, I don’t intend to go close this time, I simply want to plot it’s course until or unless the authorities want to get some volunteers to repeat what we unwittingly did. Now we know where old ‘green-eye’ is and where she’s bound, we can carry on home to Earth.”
As I spoke, I was checking the collision avoidance computer and we confirmed that ‘green-eye’ was bound for Jupiter.
“Best place for her.” Jamie surmised.
“Yeah but not before we’ve got more donors. I don’t fancy being stuck with a needle in my arm every six to eight weeks just to give a few people a chance at life. Besides, the world would be a pretty lonely place with just a few thousand survivors.”
“But a much better place maybe.” Jamie suggested softly.
“I dunno babes. I remember reading once that it would take about ten million people to support a modern industrial type of society like today’s world. You know, Farmers, doctors, teachers, engineers, and so on.”
“We could do without a few religious or political scumbags,” Jamie grinned.
“And lawyers maybe as well.” I added for good measure.
“Well. Tomorrow it’s Earth again." Jamie sighed. "Back to hazard suits and two metre bubbles.”
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 6
© Copyright. Beverly Taff.
Characters.
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Real girl friends of Jamie, Charlotte and Lucy.
Dr Williams Virologist
Chapter 6
“Well, there she is again.” Jamie reflected as the ‘sky’ turned blue again and we lost the black vastness of space. “Hello mother.”
“I never had you for a home-bird darling,” I remarked. “Thought you loved the travelling life.”
“Nah, it’s good to see old mother Earth every few weeks.” Jamie replied as she stared intently at the instruments and tapped in the co-ordinates for Dennis’s Yard.
I watched in a relaxed mode as I reflected that I had picked a ‘good-un’ in choosing to offer Jamie a chance as a spaceship officer. She brought our spaceship ‘Digger’ easily to an acceptable approach speed and started our descent. I punched in our clearance codes with central Earth control and we immediately received our pratique.
An hour later we had settled in Dennis’s yard where we discharged some scrapped machinery from one of my mines while I filed the documents. Once we had received clearance, it was but a short hop to the metal mills where we delivered the ore.
With that task complete we parked ‘Digger’ back at our regular parking bay and then returned to our apartment.
“Clubbing tonight Nana?” Jamie asked.
“Aye. For a couple of hours maybe,” I replied, “I suppose you’ll be at it to all hours.”
Jamie grinned a little self-consciously before nodding affirmation.
“Well don’t forget. We should be donating blood tomorrow. We can do it after lunch then you can sleep all you want while I deliver it.”
“Thanks Nan. You’re a treasure.”
“You owe me one. Just make sure there’s no excess booze in your system. The blood needs to be as pure as possible.”
I knew we were safe on that score. Jamie had been caught out twice before by scumbags spiking her drinks when she was younger. On both occasions she’d been ‘date-raped’ by the scumbag using Rhohypnol and then woken up the next morning wondering where she was.
Fortunately, on the second occasion I had come to know Jamie through her work at Dennis’s yard. Thanks to my persistence, we had identified and caught the drug offender, so Jamie had not been charged with drunkenness or lewd behaviour despite being found almost naked in the street. The offender got ten years because he had previous drug convictions.
After a couple of hours meeting my friends in the club, I bid everybody a good evening and made my way home. A couple of hours later, I was pleased to hear Jamie’s key in the door then I smiled as I heard some whispering in the hall. Jamie had obviously brought home a ‘friend’
I did not condemn her for that, she was young and would never conceive a child nor contract Verdo. (The shortened name for the new plague.) As to the recklessness of her newfound bed mate, well; that was his or her concern. My Jamie was safe.
ooo000ooo
The following morning, I could barely conceal my smile when Jamie’s ‘bed mate’ emerged from Jamie’s bedroom and almost dropped her empty coffee mug when she found me sat opposite Jamie at the breakfast bar.
Her Jaw sagged as she gasped.
“Who are -?” She almost gasped.
“I think I should be asking you young miss; who are you?”
“Jamie! You didn’t tell me you lived with somebody!” The girl protested as she self-consciously sidled behind the doorpost to hide her semi nudity.
“I don’t have to tell anybody I’m living with Nana, but you should have put your housecoat on. It’s hanging behind the door, go and cover yourself up.”
The girl slammed the bedroom door shut then re-emerged with the spare housecoat tightly secured at the waist.
“That’s better,” Jamie grinned, “now Jennifer, meet my house mate and friend, Nana Bev.”
“Hello Jennifer,” I greeted the scarlet faced girl, “nice to meet you.”
“Hello Na –. I can’t call you Nana.”
“Yes you can while in this apartment,” I allowed as I picked up the kettle. “Tea or Coffee, or would you prefer fruit juice.”
“Eh; another coffee please.” She confirmed uncertainly.
I poured her some hot water and Jamie made the instant coffee as I explained.
“We don’t stand on ceremony here. It’s bog-standard instant ‘student’ type coffee here. We’re not gourmets. D’ you want any breakfast?”
“Uuhm yes please, what’ve you got?”
“Well I’m making poached eggs on toast; you can share with me or Jamie can rustle you up something more substantial.”
My easy-going approach returned Jennifer’s confidence and she turned to Jamie.
“What ‘re you having love?”
“Full English.” Jamie replied with a knowing grin.
Jennifer’s eyes lit up with optimism as she nodded hopefully.
With that my phone rang, it was Dennis with some cargo offers from the freight exchange in Liverpool. I excused myself and turned from the table to discuss details. From the reflection on the chrome panel of the refrigerator door I could see Jennifer earwigging my conversation.
“I won’t be available until tomorrow Den. I’ve got stuff to sort before we take another cargo. But the cargo for Calisto sounds lucrative. I’ll get back to you before closing time at five.”
Having temporarily secured a cargo booking I turned to Jamie only to see Jennifer gaping disbelievingly at Jamie.
“I thought you were bullshitting?”
“What!” Jamie protested.
“You!” She exclaimed. “I thought you were bullshitting about the spaceship thing!”
“Why would I bullshit about that? I do fly a spaceship! It’s my job.”
“But that takes brains and stuff.”
“Tell her Nana!”
I briefly explained that Jamie was my first mate and we carried cargoes to all the visitable planets and moons.
“But she’s so young and, and she doesn’t come across as a nerd; you know, all brains and science.”
“There’s lots of different ways of becoming a spacer.” I replied. “It’s not all about going to university or space college. People can come up the hawse pipe.”
“But there’s all the training and licences and stuff.” Jennifer argued. “And what about Jamie’s transgender stuff. How did she pass the psychiatric tests?”
“They’re not compulsory.” I explained. “It’s only the big liner companies who want so-called presentable young professionals to train for their big space liners. The passengers like to think there’s some smart capable professional in charge of the ship and the big liner companies indulge them.
There’s no official psychiatric test to get a spacer’s license. All you need is brains, maths and physics.”
“How long has Jamie been doing it?”
“’Bout three years.”
“And she’s already a first mate!! She’s only twenty-one!”
“She became my de-facto first mate the day she joined me. I was a one-man-band, owner - commander when Jamie joined. I taught her to pass her exams, she’s one smart cookie.”
I could see Jennifer staring at Jamie with a newfound respect. This was certainly not the crazy ‘jack-in-a-box’ fire-cracker dancer famous for her crazy routines on the club dancefloor. She turned to me and asked.
“Can I see your spaceship.”
“Why, don’t you believe us?” I challenged.
“Well; I’d just like to check and besides. I’ve never been in a spaceship.”
“Be outside the main gate to Potters Depot at five tomorrow morning and don’t be late.” I advised
ooo000ooo
The conversation was all spaceship, spaceship, spaceship during breakfast but I let Jamie do the explaining then I called Jamie’s attention to the time.
“Come on girl, time for our blood tests and sampling for the Space health check-up.” I lied.
Jamie, being as sharp as a razor, immediately understood what I was alluding to so she offered to drive Jennifer home while I got on with paperwork. When she got back, we immediately collected our blood samples then rested a day or so prior to delivering the blood at a secure secret place before advising Doctor Williams of its whereabouts.
The following morning we were mildly surprised to see Jennifer waiting expectantly outside the gates to Dennis’s yard while enduring the driving rain.
“Gosh’” Jamie grinned, “she’s keen to have a look-see around a common-or-garden space freighter.”
“Well, if you want to impress your new girlfriend, you can show her around but I’ve secured the two-part key lock so she can’t hijack it.”
“What! D’ you really think that’s what she’s thinking?” Jamie gasped.
“I never know what to think babes but better safe than sorry.”
Jamie grinned as we pulled up at the gate and arranged with the security guard to allow Jennifer aboard my spaceship.”
Jennifer’s eyes widened with respect as the security guard accorded me some considerable respect.
“You pull some weight around here don’t you,” she remarked.
“I’ve got a part share in the yard but only one ship. I don’t want the hassle of operating a whole fleet of spaceships. I’ve turned down offers to join other spaceship conglomerates because my main interest is prospecting and then opening mines.
Most of the spaceship companies know me, I had a huge part in developing space travel when I was younger. Gravity propulsion and stuff. My patents and mining claims keep me more than happy.”
Jennifer’s eyes widened further when she realised I was ‘THAT BEV!’
Before Jennifer could become too enamoured of me I explained that I was going into Dennis’s office to sort some documents then I had a delivery to make near Oxford. I had the two blood samples to deliver to Doctor Williams before they deteriorated.
“I’ll be gone a couple of days, but Jamie can keep you entertained while I’m gone.”
Later that morning, after Jennifer had got her fill of spaceships I left them in town by our apartment while I set off south. This time I stopped by a litterbin and picked a carboard cake carton out of the rubbish. I took the two blood bottles from the minifridge in my car then wrote a note to Doctor Williams about my ideas about multiplying the donor population.
I placed the package in a farm gate way with a red plastic bag that made it look like litter. Finally, I determined the co-ordinates of the drop and texted them to Doctor Williams with a further caution.
“It’s quite cool at the drop so you have about two to six hours before the blood starts to deteriorate. I’ll drop another written message tomorrow.”
If she were interested, I would drop a note at another pre-arranged location then have a long chat with Jamie about going forward.
With this in mind, I bought yet another ‘burner phone’ with a view to talking to Doctor Williams on the morrow.
The following morning Jamie and I had long chat about what each of us really wanted. The main aims where pretty much identical. To somehow defeat the Verdospiro Virus and then get on with our own lives. We had a few personal objectives that could wait until we had somehow defeated the virus but we were obviously unanimous on the main picture.
At ten in the morning Jamie and I were located in a quiet, woodland some distance from any houses and unlikely to be located unless we spent too long talking. Doctor Williams’s phone rand and she answered it immediately.
“Hello! Is that Omega girl?”
Jamie and I confirmed we were, by once again repeating the passwords written on the blood bottles.
“I’ve read your suggestion. It sounds very risky.”
“We know that, but until you can somehow synthesise a vaccine, it seems to be the only way forward. My information suggests a Vaccine could take a few months at best, possibly longer. The virus is far more deadly than previous bugs like the Covid variants.”
“We’re estimating probably six to eight months.” Doctor Williams opined ruefully.
“And it this thing takes off?” I asked the unfinished question.
“You’ll need worse lockdowns than China back in the Covid days.”
“I thought as much and during that time, the people most at risk are medical.”
“Yes. – Unfortunately.”
I could clearly hear the concerns in Doctor Williams’s voice.
“So what do you think of my proposal, the ship full of volunteers?”
“It’s got a lot of merit. I think the best way forward is to approach the ministry of defence and expose a full regiment sized group of soldiers. If it works and they become immune, we’ll have a far greater pool of antibodies plus a disciplinary force that’s immune to the bug.
They’d be far less prone to be frightened and panic.”
“How many would that create?”
“About eight hundred to a thousand.”
“That’s more than the Mars Moon shuttle can carry. At best they normally carry two hundred. There’s not that much passenger traffic in space, it’s mostly exploration and mining. The whole population of Mars is only about four thousand.”
“We could send more than one ship.” Jamie offered. “It only needs one ship to do the navigating. The others can tag along.”
“Well it’s going to have to be done quickly.” I warned.
“Why?” Doctor Williams asked.
“Cos the asteroid that irradiated Jamie and me is heading straight into Jupiter. In about a month, it will collide. – Self destruction as it were.”
“I see.” Doctor Williams frowned. “We’d best get moving then.”
“Yes we had.” I echoed. “First things first. I don’t want to reveal my identity nor does my first mate. You’d better let us two borrow a fast patrol ship from the navy and I can copy my navigation records into her computers.”
“What!!” Doctor Williams almost screeched. “Now you want to borrow a warship.”
“I want anonymity and speed. My own ship would not keep up with one of the passenger shuttles. I’ve got to transfer myself and my navigation records to a patrol craft then my first mate and I can transfer at some secret location in space. The navy can rendezvous with our empty merchant ship and return it to Earth for me to collect when anonymity is no longer necessary.
“Once my transfer is complete, the job is done.”
“So why the obsession with anonymity?” The doctor pressed.
“If things don’t work out, I don’t want Jamie and me to be the only poor buggers with vaccine in our blood.” Our lives wouldn’t be worth living, we’d be total hostage to the virus and a national panic.”
“Are you sure you could handle a fast naval craft?”
“The navigation principles are identical and that’s the only thing we’ll be doing; navigation and piloting. I don’t expect to be shooting any weapons. I’m presuming they eat the same standard food as everybody else, pre-prepared spaceship junk.”
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 7
Characters.
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 7
I expected the authorities to take several weeks to even consider my offer but I was obviously unaware of the deteriorating situation regarding the Verdaspiro virus. Lockdown procedures were barely holding the deadly virus back and all human endeavour was beginning to seize up. The next time I contacted Doctor Williams she demanded that I agree to be patched through to the government’s COBRA emergency committee.
I immediately refused, broke off the call and destroyed the burner phone.
Long years of transgenderism and the attendant contemptuous abuse I had endured when dealing with men in authority had made me hyper reclusive towards such bullies. The only male I remotely came near to trusting was Dennis and he had no idea about Jamie’s or my immunity to Verdaspiro.
The following morning, I purchased a third new burner phone and contacted the doctor one last time. This time and to my surprise, they agreed to lend me a fast patrol craft and total anonymity surrounding the hand-over. The craft was despatched to a pre-arranged location where Jamie and I would collect it. Then we would remove the patrol craft and Digger to a second hidden location and Jamie would then join me on the patrol craft, leaving Digger and our identities hidden away.
Having successfully completed the anonymous swap, Jamie and I contacted Doctor Williams again and asked when they would have the ships with the volunteers ready.
“They’re ready now. We organised some volunteer groups from the armed forces and they are standing by at an hour’s notice.” She revealed before adding.
“Most of them are from the army medical corps, we thought, -“
“I follow your reasoning doctor. That's a fair and quick way to protect the medical teams. Just make sure that the serum is distributed on the basis of clinical need, not political or commercial clout.”
“I object to your insinuations. I would have it no other way, but I agree with your requirement that medical personnel get first chance at the serum, they will be getting the worst exposure.
We have three ships arranged to follow your patrol craft and two cargo ships loaded with stores to feed the volunteers. The passenger craft are only designed for three-day passages to Mars during apogee. If this venture is going to take more than a week, extra supplies will be carried on the cargo ships.”
“I’m happy with that doctor. So how many volunteers in all?”
“We’ve managed to squeeze about a thousand into the three ships.”
“And when can they be ready?”
“By noon today.”
“Good. We rendezvous over the south pole. We’ll be waiting at exactly terrestrial declination ninety south. That will make the initial orbital navigation calculations easy.”
I turned to Jamie as she grinned over my shoulder.
“We’d better get organised then Nana. We need antiradiation suites for us to avoid overdosing.”
“There’s good news Babe’s. This patrol craft is equipped for modest exploration duties. It’s equipped with an anti-radiation suite. We just step inside it when we get close to the asteroid. I stipulated that during the negotiations.”
Jamie grinned and we went to check our supplies. We had no intention of depending on the supply ships for our rations because our intention was to remain anonymous and unseen during the whole expedition.
Precisely at Noon, we were loitering above the south pole as three recognisable interplanetary passenger shuttles loomed into view. Communications were easily established and we made formation quickly. Soon after, the two supply ships appeared with an unannounced military escort. At first Jamie and I were suspicious but on further inspection we realised our patrol craft could easily lose it and escape with our superior speed.
Furthermore, the crew of the warship provided extra volunteers to be irradiated. ‘The more the merrier,’ I mused.
“Looks like all we have to do is show them the way.” Jamie observed thoughtfully.
“Makes our job easier,” I replied. “I gave them what radiation parameters we experienced on Digger, how close we went and how long before we became woozy and went unconscious.”
“Would it really harm us if we went in close again?” Jamie wondered.
“I’m not pushing my luck babes. We’ve got immunity and donatable blood. Let’s just leave it to them.”
“Hope it works.” Jamie observed softly.
“It’s got to girl. Otherwise, virtually all the planet is wiped out.” I reflected soberly.
ooo000ooo
Three weeks later our convoy located the asteroid. We had already provided a full description of its size, shape, nature and orbit so the captain of the warship took command of the exposure processes. Our job was technically over but we hung around awhile out of courtesy and curiosity.
From a safe distance inside our radiation suite Jamie and I watched and also discussed the progress of the volunteers. By far the most uncomfortable part was watching the video of the volunteers become nauseous then fall unconscious. We spent an anxious thirty-six hours while over three hundred volunteers lay unconscious in their military style cots and it was with some relief that we finally watched them recover consciousness.
Worse was to follow when the first twenty were separated, put into isolation and exposed to Verna Spiro one. For these tests, Doctor Williams herself had accompanied the volunteers on the warship and she worked like a trojan spacewalking between the first ship and the warship to conduct the first trials.
When she and the rest of her team were satisfied that the volunteers had acquired immunity, she despatched that first ship back to Earth while concentrating on the volunteers in the second ship. The second group of volunteers where in the main, medial corps volunteers and the process went much more smoothly.
From her laboratory on the warship she tried hailing our patrol craft. We were well out of visual range or radiation range from either the ships or ‘Green-eye’ (Our affectionate name for the asteroid.) but fortunately, we were in radio range.
After agreeing, Jamie and I decided to answer their hail.
“Hello project Verna Spiro this is Omega girl, we read you.”
There was a pregnant pause then the noticeably relieved voice of Doctor Williams.
“Ah! So you are still around.”
“Happen.” Jamie responded briefly. We’re just watching.”
“I’ve got some news for you.”
“Which is?”
“We’ve got a second convoy of bigger passenger liners hoping to expose some more volunteers. It’s a United Nations expedition organised by the USA and China.”
“They’d better hurry. In another two to three weeks Green-eye will be entering Jupiter’s magnetosphere, there’s no knowing how that will affect the asteroids radiation.”
“Good point Omega Girl. I’ll jolly them along. So what are your plans now?”
“Well, our job’s done. We’ll be returning this patrol craft back to the authorities on Earth then getting on with the rest of our lives.”
“Would you not be prepared to stay around to render assistance if needed?”
“How? We’re a two-man crew in a small patrol craft. We’ve done our bit.”
“Yes but you’ve got proven skills when operating on special missions in space.” Dr Williams tried to persuade us.
“No we haven’t,” I re-emphasised. “We’re just two spacemen who can navigate our way around the Solar System.” Any spaceship officer could have done it. Our only contribution was knowledge of the meteorite’s predicted path.”
“But your craft. It can act as an effective shuttle between the United Nations ships delivering the other volunteers and the ships taking them home.”
“It’s not my craft Doctor Williams. It’s a naval patrol craft on loan to me from the naval authorities. Any naval lieutenant could do the ferrying.”
“Yes but those lieutenants are all back on Earth getting them here will take time we have not got.”
“What about delegating two officers from the bigger military ship that escorted us here?”
Even as I spoke I realised this would compromise Jamie and my identities. It seemed there was only one way and it meant Jamie and I would have to do the transfers ourselves. The United Nation vessels had been urgently compartmentalised between radiation proof sections and exposure sections. As soon as the United Nation volunteers were sufficiently exposed, they would have to retreat to radiation proof sections provided on the ‘return’ ship and leave the area as soon as possible.
Jamie and I would have to operate the shuttle service from the radiation proof command suite on our fast patrol craft.
What complicated things was that we had no idea how fast the shuttle service would operate, - and Jupiter’s magnetosphere was drawing ever closer.
ooo000ooo
Reluctantly and somewhat angrily, Jamie and I agreed to commence transfers up and until we felt it was too dangerous to continue. Doctor Williams was at least prepared to extend us that privilege.
As we bid good luck and bon voyage to the last shipload of volunteers from our home country’s endeavours, Jamie and I stared at the detector screens as their echo faded in the direction of Earth.
“So when do these United Nations ships arrive?” Jamie wondered out aloud.
“God knows!” I replied as frustration started to eat at my confidence.
Jamie, ever sensitive to moods and atmospheres looked supportively towards me.
“Remember Nana, we do not have to take any risks ourselves. If we have any doubts we abort.”
I nodded and smiled wanly. Jamie was right and I could have hugged her for being so stoically supportive.
“Don’t you worry about that Babes; you can bet your bottom dollar I’m not going to endanger us.”
With these thoughts, I headed away from old Green-eye the asteroid, to escape the radiation and thus enable us to live normally outside the radiation proof suite; - at least until the UN convoy showed up.
It was not long in arriving. Jamie and I barely had two-day break before the groups of echoes identified themselves on our sensor screens. This time I was on duty when they showed up and I woke Jamie with a delicious breakfast.
“Get this down you now Babes. God knows when we’ll get a decent meal again. I’ve counted four large targets and two smaller ones. Looks like we’re going to be busy for a week or more at least.”
Jamie groaned and reluctantly crawled out of bed as I put the meal on her table. While she ate, I contacted the approaching convoy to establish our strategy, or more correctly, their strategy.
After they had explained their plan I slumped back in our command seat and took a long, slow incredulous breath.
“You mean transfer them in radiation proof boxes?!!”
Their planners quickly tried to elaborate by explaining that the ‘universal access port on the rear deck of my Naval patrol craft was a standard fixture on all military spacecraft. Then a standard access portal could be attached very easily to connect a container and ensure the transferral of goods or people (soldiers ordinarily) from the sealed container to the spacecraft.
As a commercial spaceship captain and commander I had never had cause to use such a device but I had often seen the door-shaped frame on several military craft and realised it was some sort of airtight connection to make a simple but effective airlock connection.
Warships and large commercial passenger craft were invariably supplied with a suitable universal connector that could connect to another ship or to a life-saving container.
However as I normally operated my own ship ‘Digger’ with a two-man crew, (me and Jamie); and occasionally a passenger or two, I had no need to be fitted with a universal access portal. If we had to abandon our ship ‘Digger,’ we used ‘space-pods’ with sufficient fuel to get clear of any danger then any survivors would ‘subspace’ a distress call.
This container idea was something I had never envisaged or seen.
“Are you serious. You place the volunteers in an airtight container, then ship them from the radiation craft to a radiation proof space on the receiving craft.”
“Yes. The system has been tested and it works. All you have to do is let our operators locate the radiation proof container on your after deck then transfer it across where the receiving craft can collect the container and volunteers. Meanwhile, you take back an empty container. Don’t worry captain, it’s been tried and tested back in a near Earth orbit and it works.”
I exchanged a disbelieving glance with Jamie who pulled a long doubtful face. However all we had to do was locate alongside one ship, receive the container then take it to the other ship. We wouldn't even be using the access ports or airlocks.
“Ours but to do or die, ours not to reason why.” Jamie softly intoned the famous lines from Tennyson’s Poem.
I shrugged resignedly. Jamie was right.
Two hours later, the convoy hove into sight and promptly started locating the volunteer ships at the right distance from old ‘Green-eye’ the asteroid.
The commander of the operation then asked me to put my craft alongside the cargo hatch of the passenger craft and as I did so, (very carefully,) the huge side cover opened and a large boom appeared. The intercom boomed advice.
“When the first volunteers are irradiated, we will extend the boom and place the container on your craft. All you have to do is transfer it across to the reception vessel and lay alongside their cargo hatch. While they are processing the first batch you bring an empty container back then it becomes a simple shuttle process.”
“Got you.” I confirmed. “How many volunteers are in each container?”
“About eighty, all standing.”
“Not much time then,” I observed, “limited air to breath and stuff.”
“There’s an oxygen bottle in each container. “Sufficient for three hours but we expect each transfer to only take an hour there and back.”
I did a quick calculation. Eighty people an hour and a thousand passengers on each big ship. Twelve to fifteen hours per passenger craft, - if everything went without a hitch.
I turned to Jamie who was reading my mind.
“Four ships, four thousand passengers; say four to five days if everything goes without a hitch.”
Simultaneously we uttered the identical remark.
“And nothing ever goes off without a hitch!”
“Well, we should have plenty of time. It’s still two weeks approximately before we get too close to Jupiter’s magnetosphere.”
Jamie maintained a deafening but knowing silence.
"Shurr'up!" I riposted nervously and the irony was not lost on her.
ooo000ooo.
Antibodies 8
Characters.
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 8
Naturally, the Captain in command of the transferral operation wanted to try a couple of ‘Dummy runs’ so the first day was pretty much a waste of time, We only managed to transfer one container of volunteers and that was a pretty scary event.
To avoid the volunteers being battered and bruised, the ‘spacewalkers’ discovered they had to tether the bumping containers to our patrol craft and that added half an hour to each cycle. What the poor buggers inside the containers must have wondered is anybody’s guess.
It was also something of a revelation to discover that for micro manoeuvring our faithful old Digger was much more effective than a high-speed patrol craft. The trouble was, Digger was hidden beyond Saturn.
I’m afraid the generously supplied patrol craft received more than its fair share of dents and scrapes.
ooo000ooo
Nevertheless, the operation did progress satisfactorily. Then, when two of the ships were full of radiated volunteers; a quick calculation showed that it would save on supplies and stores if those two ships set off back to Earth without an escort. The outward journey had proven to be incident free and it was reasoned that there seemed to be little cause for concern on the return journey.
The remaining supplies were re-distributed between the supply ships and the first group set off back to Earth.
From our patrol craft, Jamie and I watched the ships gradually disappearing then we returned to our ferrying duties.
The transfers to the third UN ship proved to be a little bumpy but eventually the ship was filled and the expedition captain decided to send the ship back to Earth unescorted while we finished off the last transfers. It was only when we were busy ferrying the transfers to the fourth ship that the news came through that the first two ships had been attacked and Hijacked.
Jamie was busy on the radio talking to the last ship when the space net exploded into pandemonium. Well experienced as she was, she ripped me from my slumbers.
“Be-ev! Nana! We’ve got trouble!
“What!?” I yelled back anticipating some sort of leak or damaged container as I stumbled from my cot.”
“There’s some sort of trouble near Earth. Piracy or something, I’m earwigging the captain of the escort.”
“Where is the escort?” I asked as I searched for a visual.
Jamie flipped the sensor screen to reveal the Escort craft hightailing it after the third vessel and thus rapidly abandoning us to any attack that might appear.
“What do we do?” Jamie asked.
I quickly spoke with the other captains of the passenger ship and the supply craft and we quickly concluded that the best thing to do was to finish the irradiations then scarper. I listened to the other senior remaining captain as he outlined a plan.
“We get all the remaining volunteers irradiated ASAP then we leave this place with the supply ships and find somewhere to hide until the authorities clear up the mess.”
“Okay, I agreed. It was no use arguing! His plan was as good as any we could dream up. The all-important thing was to finish the irradiations and get the volunteers to a safe place.
The captain elaborated his plan.
“We get everybody to Saturn and possibly lurk around Titan.”
I had severe reservations about this plan because the logistics didn’t hold up.
It might be okay to ship a thousand people out to Titan just to hide them; but keeping them there until an unknown situation on Earth had resolved itself did not strike me as ‘a plan’!
“How are you going to feed them?” I asked. “They could be cooped up on the ship for months.”
“The supply ship could reload another cargo of supplies.”
“From where? The hydroponic farms on Mars are only designed to feed the townships on Mars. Suddenly dumping a thousand extra mouths to feed is not going to endear you to the Marsfolk. Their logistics are pretty perilous as we speak.” I cautioned.
He fell thoughtfully silent the frowned.
“What about the hydroponic moons of Venus?”
“The hydroponic moons of Venus were an endeavour by man to terraform the planet Venus. Essentially they were artificial moons mostly comprising rocks dragged from the asteroid belt between mars and Jupiter then conjoined together and encased in glass to make gigantic airtight spherical greenhouses.
On these moons, scientists, agriculturalists, and biologists were experimenting to create mutated plants in Laboratory conditions. These plants were being mutated and tested inside the hydroponic tanks to create plants to inspirate much higher concentrations of carbon dioxide then aspirate oxygen out through the leaves while developing root systems that broke down sulphuric acid rain into water, sulphur and Oxygen to be either disposed of into the sun or somehow utilised to terraform Venus.
Some of these artificial moons were several thousand metres in diameter and they now orbited Venus in a stable bracelet of glittering spheres of glass.
Despite the considerable effort and endeavour, the artificial hydroponic moons of Venus would in no way provide food fit for humans.
The system had taken decades to develop and was only now beginning to show the faintest glimmer of prospects.
The agriculturalists who were running the Venusian show, grew plenty of vegetables for their own consumption in one dedicated hydroponic moon with earth-like conditions, but they would never feed a thousand extra mouths.
The captain’s suggestion was a non-starter. The more we examined the equation the more it seemed we had to determine the exact situation on earth then decide a plan, if a plan was viable.
During these intense discussions Jamie came to me with her own ideas.
“Look Nana, we are still unknown to these people. They have never seen our faces because we are always wearing our spacesuits when manoeuvring our ship close to others and we use the voice distortion all the time. I’ve got an idea.”
ooo000ooo
I was open to any suggestions and I nodded encouragement.
“Go babes, hit me with it.”
She looked at me and frowned uncertainly with reflected her lack of self-confidence despite having been a successful space-mate for upwards of five years.
“Go on Babes, spit it out.”
“Well, we should separate from these ships and return to Digger. As far as anybody knows, Digger is somewhere deep in space beyond Saturn perhaps, exploring Uranus or Neptune’s moons. If Digger just turns up back from deep space, everybody will think we are just returning from one of your prospecting trips for which you are well known amongst the space community.”
“Go on.” I encouraged.
“We could at least get close to Earth and find out what the situation is.
Have the kidnappers taken the irradiated volunteers to some place on Earth and holding them to ransom or have they somehow overwhelmed the whole planet. It’s no good trusting transmissions from Earth because we don’t know who’s in control of what.”
I had to inwardly smile. In the brief five years I had known her, Jamie had grown an old head on young shoulders. She certainly knew the dangers associated with space and dealt with them in a mature responsible manner.
It was a damming reflection of how her transgenderism had been abused by societal mores to gnaw away at her self-confidence; despite her having superb space-man capability.
“Well,” I nodded thoughtfully, “you’re making sense girl. Do we hide this patrol craft somewhere beyond Neptune. If we do, we’ll have to split temporarily one of us to each of the ships then meet up outside Neptune’s orbit then park this patrol ship out there while we travel all innocent and incognito, back to Earth.”
“Sooner rather than later,” Jamie agreed.
We chose to do it immediately and peeled away from the little convoy before the others could react. It was painful ignoring their demands as they slowly turned to requests then beseechments as we sped away at speed to our secret location where Digger was parked up.
“I feel guilty not explaining.” Jamie observed quietly.
“So do I Babe’s but needs must. We have no idea if there are spies on those ships or if they might consider us as traitors or enemies or what. Our behaviour must appear totally criminal to them. We have to remain anonymous until there are sufficient numbers of donors to spread immunity.”
“And we won’t know that until we get back to Earth.” Jamie reflected.
“Exactly,” I nodded, “and we can’t trust any sub-space communications.”
Jamie pulled a wry smirk as we sped at maximum speed towards Digger.
ooo000ooo
“These things are fast!” Jamie turned to me as she scanned our plot.
“They’re supposed to be. My great grandfather was the inventor of this drive and they haven’t much improved on it.”
“What your great grandfather was Charlie Sage?”
“Yeah. The Gravity drive inventor.
“Oh my God! Is that where the Sage comes from, the sub-atomic unit of gravitational extrapolation comes from.”
“Yeah. The very same.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“There’s a family photograph of him holding me in his arms as a new-born infant. He died very soon after that, old age and stuff.”
“Do you keep in touch with the family?”
“Only my mother, and even that’s a pretty tenuous connection.”
“I’d have thought after his battles with the feminista forces, your transgenderism would be ‘old hat’.” Jamie wondered.
“More like ‘old shoe’ but a pretty worn out scuffed one. The family don’t abuse me or condemn me for being ‘trans’ but I know my mother want’s grandchildren and her disappointment sometimes shows through the cracks.”
“Why don’t you go the donor route? I take it you’ve got frozen sperm.”
“First find an agreeable egg.” I mused as I cross referenced the navigation plot.”
“I’d have a womb transplant just for you.” Jamie replied suggestively.
“What about eggs?” I replied.
“There’s millions of women out there prepared to donate their eggs, especially if it means they can become a mother without having to give up work. You know what it’s like?”
“We all knew the maths surrounding the universal birth control rules as the Earth became over-populated. Only two babies per woman so that the population would slowly reduce without putting too much strain on the societal fabric. Single sex couples could rightfully have up to two children and lots of hetero-couples were prepared to buy the extra baby-right off a same-sex couple without technically adding to the population density but simultaneously allowing the hetero-couple to enjoy three or even four children.
There were many single sex couples more than prepared to sell their baby quota to heterosexual couples and all the authorities were concerned about was the parental resources available to the hetero couple to raise and extra children.
We chatted about the population situation until we knew we were in Digger’s location then Jamie activated the low-powered search scanner to cause Digger’s ID beacon to respond. The response was immediate which was a reflection on our navigation accuracy because we had left Digger on an elongated orbit around Titan.
“Bingo!” Jamie squeaked with deserved satisfaction. “Right on the button Nana.”
“Okay Babe’s. Space suit on and haul yourself across. We can each pilot a ship ‘til we get close to Earth then we can place this patrol craft in a suitable orbit and the navy can collect her while we skedaddle to anonymity.”
“With our plan prepared we completed the return of the patrol craft to the navy while Jamie and I slipped away to Saturn’s moon Titan and recovered some geological samples that would create the impression that we had been way out in space during the whole story surrounding the vaccine donators.
When we finally returned to Earth proper we played the simple act of pretending to be geology prospectors just trying to make a buck locating minerals and stuff.
Naturally, when Digger and her two crew finally landed at Dennis’s depot we simply fell into the conversation that was occupying everybody’s mind. The pirated United Nations ships with the kidnapped vaccine donors.
“So how many ships got pirated Dennis?” I asked feigning complete ignorance.
“Three out of the four. The pirates had a fleet of warships and they overwhelmed the convoy. The single escort ship was escorting the last ship and that’s the only ship that arrived home safely.
The first three ships were pirated to a base in Sub-Saharan Africa.
“So they know where they are then?” Jamie observed.
“Yes but they’re being held hostage by this religious cult. An extremist off-shoot of the old jihadist movement.”
“I thought the islamist extremists were all sorted during the last and final caliphate war. They more or less wiped each other out didn’t they?”
“Apparently not. There’s a residue extremist faction still active in the North Congo Basin.”
“What about those first ‘home-grown’ volunteers who were treated first?”
Jamie asked.
“They’re okay apparently but. That’s only a few hundred and they are still working on producing a vaccine. For now, they can only do what those first two donors did and offer half a litre of blood every six weeks.”
“That’s ten cc of blood per dose so that’s fifty doses every six weeks from each donor. Those are the figures the researchers are saying at the moment. Until the vaccines are available it’s just a drop in the ocean.”
Dennis explained.
“So our five hundred home-grown volunteers can only produce about twenty-five thousand doses every six weeks.” Jamie calculated. “That’s not going to cut it!”
After weighing in our rock samples, Jamie and I left for our apartment in the city. I wanted to sleep but Jamie wanted to go clubbing. She telephoned Jennifer and the last thing I heard before going to sleep, was Jennifer’s voice at the door.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 9
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 9
The chimes of the town-hall clock coinciding with the click of the front door lock alerted me to Jamie’s return home. Normally, she was considerate of my sleeping habits and I would not ordinarily hear her. I would sleep on as she crept to her own bed unless she was feeling sociable and she would slip between my sheets.
I would wake up as she crawled between the sheets and usually spooned her bum into my tummy while inviting me to slide my hand over her hip and cuddle her.
Cuddles is all it ever was, for Jamie had been a lonely child and a victim of constant bullying. She was not looking for sex from me, she was looking for a surrogate mother.
I was quite prepared to provide that mothering for it gave me satisfaction to give comfort to another. I felt a sense of worth to find that somebody needed me.
That particular morning, as the fourth chime of the clock died sonorously through the empty streets; I was not surprised to hear that Jamie had brought Jennifer back. I was surprised to hear her sobbing though, and even more concerned when Jamie knocked on my door.
“Nana,” she called softly, “are you awake?”
“I am now, what’s wrong?”
“Tonight; in the club. Somebody was taken ill.”
“Oh shit!” I cursed softly before asking, “Verdo-spiro”?
“Looks like it. We’ve been told by the police that everybody has to self-isolate for twenty-one days.”
I turned to look at Jennifer who was fretting tearfully.
“Did they close the club?”
“Ye-es.” She sobbed. I was right by the guy that collapsed.”
“How close?” I demanded.
“He staggered sideways then collapsed right beside me and he clutched at my bare arm as he went down. I couldn’t shake him off and before I realised it, the dancing group around me had parted like the red sea! I was alone with this sick stranger right in the middle of the dancefloor. They closed the club immediately and then they tried to get me to take him home. Everybody thought I was his girlfriend or something.”
“I had to tell the doormen that Jenny was with me and nothing to do with the sick guy.” Jamie added as she eyed me pleadingly.
“Where the old bill there?” I pressed.
“Yes, eventually, but we got away before they got organised. Jenny gave a false name to the doormen and a false address.”
“That will only make things bloody worse!” I cursed softly. “Suspicions get raised and they’ll intensify the hunt if they think somebody is hiding something – anything!”
“Wha- what am I going to do?” Jenny wailed. “I’m almost certainly infected!”
She slumped onto the kitchen table as deep sobs of terror wracked her frame while Jamie stared at me over Jennifer’s heaving back.
“We’ll have to tell her.” Jamie mouthed.
I wagged my head and motioned my head towards my bedroom. Jamie released her arms from around Jenny and joined me in my en-suite bathroom.
“The moment we offer her our blood, she’s bound to twig.” Jamie frowned.
“Not if I can knock her out and transfuse the blood while she’s unconscious.” I pointed out.
“How are you going to zonk her?”
“Slip something in her tea then we’ll transfuse the blood directly.”
“I thought that’s what you’d suggest,” Jamie grinned. “I’ll give my blood. I owe you that at least.”
“Right. You make her some tea while I sort out the knock-out drops.”
I heard Jamie explain to Jennifer.
“Nana’s giving you something to sleep and your head will be clearer in the morning. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
Jennifer and Jamie were already ‘lesbian’ lovers and she helped Jenny get undressed for bed while I sorted the cocoa. I had decided against tea because the cocoa better disguised the sleeping draught.
As Jamie reassured Jenny by lying alongside her on the bed, I hastened to my garage and took out my portable transfusion kit from my car. Jamie and I now carried this in my car wherever we left the apartment, ‘just in case.’ The situation with Jenny was precisely one of those ‘jics’ (just-in-case) moments. I returned to find Jenny already zonked while Jamie had thoughtfully prepared an exposed vein on Jenny’s foot.
“Good thinking girl,” I smiled.
If Jenny awoke to find a puncture fistula in her arm she’d get suspicious, but a puncture wound on her foot could be ascribed to an injury as Jamie had helped her to the bed.
Within minutes, we had transfused at least thirty cc of Jamie’s blood into Jennifer’s foot. Half as much again as was normally transfused by Doctor Williams at the inoculation station that had been hastily set up near Oxford..
“That should be more than enough.” I declared as I bandaged both Jamie’s arm and Jenny’s foot .
Jamie smiled and gave me a hug as Jenny slept peacefully.
“What would we do without you Nana?”
“Learn to do transfusions yourself,” I grinned as we smiled across the breakfast worktop. “Besides, that was a good idea about the foot.”
Having done our good deed for the day we slept together and left Jenny to wake up in Jamie’s bed sometime around noon. I was preparing lunch and Jamie had slipped down to the shops to get a bottle of wine when Jenny surfaced.
“Morning Nana,” she mumbled as she shuffled her bum onto the breakfast bar seats.
“How’s your head?” I asked.
“Still a bit groggy. Where’s Jamie?”
“Down the shops. A she's buying a few extra odds and ends to feed three.”
“How did I hurt my foot?”
“Jamie was moving you and your foot got caught by a screw sticking out of the foot of the bed, so we decided to leave you in her bed. She slept with me.”
After pointing out where Jamie had ‘removed’ the offending screw; I pushed the mug of tea and a single round of toast across the breakfast bar to her. Jamie looked at it hungrily so I explained.
“You’ll be having Sunday lunch soon, so we don’t want to spoil it.”
As she nursed her mug she asked nervously.
“D’ you think I’m infected?”
“I can’t say love. Did any of his body fluids touch you.”
“He was covered in perspiration. We were behaving responsibly but he sort of staggered sideways across the two-metre gap then stumbled against me. His sweat certainly scraped against my arm.”
“Oh dear. Well we’ll know by this evening if you begin to feel woozy.”
“Aren’t you afraid, I mean Jamie almost carried me to bed.”
“Well nothing’s certain,” I stone-walled to reassure her, “if you feel sick by tonight, you’ll know.”
I was laying the table when Jamie returned with a troubled look. I gave her a questioning look and she explained.
“There were about twenty people at the club last night who were carrying the infection before they went in. They were tested positive and immediately put into quarantine.”
“Any news about the one who collapsed against Jenny?”
“He was tested positive and taken immediately to the quarantine camp as well. They think he’s too far gone to save and there’s insufficient vaccine anyway. The volunteers from the spaceships the government sent to Jupiter have not yet developed the antibodies. They reckon it’ll be a few weeks before that comes to maturity. There was talk of putting the gay village into lockdown.”
I harrumphed irritably.
“Here we go again. Always blame the gays!”
Jenny nodded dispiritedly but Jamie gave her a squeeze as she tried to reassure her.
It was hard for Jamie to show deep concern and an apparent fear of impending death whilst yet knowing that Jenny was almost certainly safe. Almost every reassuring word threatened to give our secret away for if Jamie was too optimistic, Jenny was bound to pick up on something. To try and balance the mood, I made pretence of being overly pessimistic whilst not wishing to talk too much. My silence alone, tended to frighten Jenny but there was little I could do to avoid the impasse.
For three days when we self-isolated, the mood in the apartment became tenser and tenser and the only relief to be had was watching the news while dipping into Jamie and my ‘famine cupboard.’
Jenny was at least happy for a sufficient supply of food.
On the fourth day, Jenny took a turn for the worse. Firstly she became feverish then her temperature rose and we put her to bed. That night, her stomach started to hurt and Jamie and I realised the important climax was due. For another day, the stomach cramps gripped her and she became terrified as the nausea caused her to vomit.
Finally the last terrifying symptom manifested itself.
That morning there was a scream from the bathroom and Jenny pitched forward off the lavatory pan.
Jamie, who was sharing with me while Jenny went through the throes and rigours of the Verdovirus, was the first to reach the bathroom. By the time I had reached the en-suite bathroom attached to Jamie’s bedroom, Jamie had lifted Jenny to sit in the bathtub before turning to me and nodding towards the pan.
Jenny, like just about everybody on the planet was fully aware of the deadly final symptoms, namely faeces turning green followed by extreme gastrointestinal pain. As I entered the bathroom, Jenny looked up.
“I’m done for Nana; we’re all done for. It’s green.”
I hesitated as I picked my words carefully. If Jenny survived this and her demeanour told me she wasn’t suffering debilitating stomach cramps, then Jamie and I would have to come clean. I looked at Jamie who gave me the most cursory, secretive nod then turned away. The ball was in my court.
“How are the stomach cramps?” I asked sympathetically.
Jenny looked up at me with some confusion.
“Just as they were before. They haven’t got worse yet.”
“Good!” I let out a short sigh. “There may be some hope yet.”
“What d’ you mean?” She almost cried.
“It’s the cramps that are the final symptom. The violent abdominal convulsions destroy the weakened intestinal lining and the gut ruptures to cause peritonitis. That’s what causes victims to scream if they don’t get pain killers.”
“I know that. Everybody’s learned that bit. When does it start?” Jenny pressed.
“Normally it’s simultaneous to the first green defaecation.” I replied.
“So what’s not happening?” Jenny stared at me in fear. Why aren’t I in worse pain?”
“I’ll be able to explain a little later. For now, get yourself cleaned up in the shower, while Jamie and I clean up the mess.”
“Don’t touch my shit, it’s highly infectious!” Jenny squealed.
“Tell us something we don’t know!” Jamie almost choked on her suppressed laugh.
Jenny stepped out of the tub to use the shower but she turned fearfully.
“What’s going on with you two. You don’t seem afraid!”
“Get in the shower love.” I ordered.
ooo000ooo
Jenny continued staring at Jamie and me and I had to be a little more forceful.
“Get in the bloody shower, I’ll explain when you’re cleaned up!”
Jenny stepped in and I handed her a large plastic bottle of antiseptic body gel.
“Use this and wash yourself down thoroughly, even shampoo your hair with it, at least twice. You’re right about the green faeces thing”
Gratefully, she snatched the economy-sized squeezy bottle and liberally covered herself from head to toe while Jamie and I washed and sprayed the bathroom. When Jenny emerged from the shower, Jamie handed her a disinfected bathrobe and took all her towels to the washing machine.
As she returned to Jamie’s bedroom, Jenny sniffed inquisitively for our whole apartment stank of disinfectant.
“Jeeze! You’ve gone overboard!”
“Yeah!” I confirmed, “now sit down and we’ll explain.”
She sat shivering on Jamie’s bed while Jamie brought in some warm sweet fruit-juice.
“Here, Drink this, you need to replace fluids. Nana’s going to explain.”
Jenny glanced between us and frowned.
“Yes. I think I deserve that.”
And so I began.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 10
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 10.
I took a long slow breath as I debated telling Jennifer everything, then I concluded the best way forward was to give her a brief explanation then let her ask questions. However, it was imperative that I swore her to secrecy. Unfortunately, Jamie had previously intimated that Jennifer could be a bit of a chatterbox or worse a gossip. I could see Jamie tensing up slightly as she prepared to listen to me reveal our secret.
Eventually I was forced to take the plunge.
“Right Jenny, as you’ve seen, your faeces have turned green but you’re not feeling stomach cramps. What does that tell you?”
Jenny stared at me with fear and uncertainty writ large in her eyes.
“I dunno.” She croaked nervously.
I took the forceful, domineering route.
“Right! I’ll tell you right now, you are NOT going to die!”
She frowned as she tried to digest my words.
“Wha-, what d’you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said Jenny, you are NOT going to die.”
I watched the fear being replaced by doubt and uncertainty as it spread across her face. Finally she found words to press further.
“How d’ you know?” She frowned again. “What’s going on?”
“What’s going on is that you are immune to Verna Spiro Type one Virus just take it from Jamie and me that you are NOT going to die.”
“But how?”
Jamie could see that I was struggling with revealing the whole truth so she stepped in with a little white lie.
“Listen Babes, you’ve heard those rumours about the vaccine being very rare and difficult to get hold of!”
“Yes.” Jenny croaked hoarsely.
“Well the reason it’s scarce is because at the moment they don’t actually have a vaccine. They are using some blood that is donated by a secret donor. Obviously that donor;- or those donors; can only donate so much blood and each time it’s only enough for about fifty doses. There are only two donors, and the government can’t find them because they have to avoid being found and detained or kidnapped for exploitation.
You have heard about the government’s expedition with hundreds of military volunteers who they hope will become donors if their ideas work.
“Yes. They’re waiting for the results, to see if or when those volunteers develop the antibodies.”
“Yes,” Jamie continued, “well it’s going to be a couple of months before the antibodies show up in their bloods. The government realises that this delay is going to be a critical time and until then, lockdowns are going to be essential but brutally tight and unpopular.”
I added.
“As people die between now and when those antibodies are available, the mob are going to accuse the government of withholding vaccines. And if they discover that there are only two donors currently able to supply; then you can bet your bottom dollar that the gutter press and just about all the internet websites will be screaming for blood; - our blood!”
Jenny’s eyes widened into organ-stops as the realisation slowly dawned.
“Your blood! You mean-!”
“Yes. That’s exactly what we mean!” Jamie interjected. “Our blood. Nana and I are those two donors!”
“So your blood is running inside my veins!”
“Got it in one girl. Now for fuck’s sake DO NOT BLAB!”
“But –“
“No buts girl!” I threatened. “If we have the slightest suspicion that the secret’s out, we fuck off back into space and the world will have to wait until the scientists fix a vaccine!”
“So keep your mouth shut!” Jamie added. “Even if one of your friends gets infected, you DO NOT mention us.”
“So how do you supply your blood to the government?” Jenny asked.
“You don’t need to know that. Just keep your mouth shut for a few more months until the volunteer blood becomes available.”
“But if your only supplying blood every six weeks, that’s just two or three donations between now and then. That’s just a drop in the ocean.”
“Duuhh! We know that better than anybody Jenny!” I replied. “That’s why we keep our heads down.”
Jamie sighed. “Just make sure you don’t become a carrier; you know, infected with the bug and then infecting others but not affected yourself. Avoid crowds.”
Jenny suddenly became thoughtful.
“That means I’ll have to self-isolate.”
“And then some,” Jamie emphasised. “No more clubbing for another two or three months.”
“How do you know it takes three months to become resistant?”
“It doesn’t when you’re vaccinated, that protection is almost immediate. But it took us three months before our bone-marrow reacted to the asteroid radiation. On that premise the scientists presume it will be three months before anybody else produces those antibodies and to do that, your body gets altered. Here look at this.”
Jamie proffered her hand and pricked a finger. Jennifer gasped as she noted that Jamie’s blood was not pure bright red but had a slightly discernible, greenish / brownish hue.
“Oh my god! Is it permanently like that?” Jenny squeaked.
“No, the oxygenated arterial blood coming from the lungs is bright red like yours, it’s the venous blood after it’s done it’s work, When the blood carries the carbon dioxide from the muscles back to the lungs, this is where the antibodies are created by the white blood cells. Call me and Nana aliens if you bloody want but that’s how it is.”
“Will my blood go like that?”
“We don’t think so. We have never met any recipients of our blood after a transfusion because we have to avoid them because of the need for anonymity.”
“This will work, won’t it?” Jenny pressed.
“Yes, we just don’t know about the blood colour. Donors will have greenish/brown blood, ordinary recipients will be red, we think. We hope it stays that way until a proper vaccine is produced.”
ooo000ooo
Jenny stayed with us at our apartment until we left for our next voyage into space. Our schedule was firstly our moon, then some hydroponic equipment for Venus; then Mars and finally Saturn’s moons. It was a resupply trip entailing several ‘drop-offs’ at different mines to supply equipment.
This was followed by a return voyage loaded with valuable ores and we anticipated a round trip of approximately six weeks. This suited us because it equated to the periods between blood donations.
When we returned we found that the ‘gay village’ had been isolated and put into lock-down because of the spike in infections. We could not get to our apartment but we could call Jenny on our mobiles.
“Are you getting enough to eat?” Jamie asked her.
“Yes. Food is rationed but that’s not a bad thing. There’s a few as could do with dieting.”
Having confirmed that Jenny was managing alright, we booked into a spacemen’s hostel where spacemen could lay over between trips. Many spacemen virtually lived at these hostels during their working lives before making enough money to retire or buy a home or marrying. The spacemen society was by and large an insular community as individuals worked and saved the high salaries they earned.
In the hostels however, that insularity broke down for the residents had one close connection namely the dangers associated with space travel. We were checked for infection but we were not blood sampled and that evening Jamie and I settled down to a meal in the restaurant.
Later, as we watched the news there was the latest update concerning the donor hostages being held in Africa.
“D’ you think they’ll get them out alive?” Jamie asked as she painted her toenails.
“I dunno.’ Best thing we can do is keep lying low. The other donors are living under constant protection but they’re all military medical people so they’ll be used to living in secure camps.” I replied as I sipped my tea and read some reports that Dennis my cargo agent had handed me on landing.
“Can I come with you when you deliver our blood tomorrow?” Jamie asked.
“We’d best remain separated until the donors come on stream. It shouldn’t be long now, just another six-week trip. The last thing we want is to be caught together by anybody who knows about our blood donations.”
Jamie shrugged and gave a wry smile.
“I’ll be glad when they get a vaccine. What’s that your typing?”
“A letter to Doctor Williams. I’ll attach it to our blood donations tomorrow.”
“What’s it about?”
“I just want a progress report on the blood donors; that is our donors, and the United Nations ones on the ship that wasn’t pirated. I’d also like a progress report on vaccine development.”
“And how will she report to you?”
I waved a new burner phone at Jamie who rolled her eyes.
“Jeeze! What’s that, the fifth or sixth?”
“Can’t be too careful babes.
The following morning, I dropped Jamie off in London and drove to a remote location to drop off the blood. Then I texted Doctor Williams and drove home. The following morning I drove with Jamie to Wales and received the texted report. The most valuable information was that they had picked up feint traces of immature antibodies in the blood of some of the donors and they anticipated another six to eight weeks before a full service could be instigated.
They had done the maths I wanted and, provided strict lockdown procedures were followed throughout the country, they calculated the country could be ‘out – of – the – woods’ within a year.
“What about the rest of the world?” Jamie wondered, “And what about the hostages?”
“I’ll do some calculations when we get back aboard Digger. That’s the best place we can stay until the gay village is unlocked.”
“What living in space or camping out in Dennis’s freight terminal?” Jamie grinned.
“You pays your money and you takes your choice.” I grinned back.
“We’d best sort Jenny out. See her right for supplies, then do another trip
With this plan agreed, we returned to ‘Digger’ which was parked in her regular cargo bay in the freight yard. There I completed my calculations by extrapolating the figures Doctor Williams had given me.
The figures were not reassuring. Our country had three hundred potential military blood donors while the UN had just three hundred more to service the rest of the earth’s population. I could foresee trouble ahead.
I had sufficient confidence in our government to immunise the most important people first and those were the researchers developing an effective vaccine, followed by medical people treating the sick.
I had also made it abundantly clear that while our blood was the only source available, there was to be no favouritism treating politicians etcetera. If I got the slightest hint that my or Jamie’s blood was being diverted for political ends, we would stop supplying.
Finally we completed loading Digger and departed Earth anticipating an eight-to-ten-week voyage via all the usual regular moons and planets plus some more special deliveries for the hydroponic moons of Venus.
Jamie was quite excited for as a younger person, she had genuine expectations of seeing real progress in the glacially slow process of terraforming Venus. I of course, would be long dead before anybody could even venture close to Venus’s surface. Still it was delight for Jamie to put Digger alongside one of the vast rock carriers that was transferring veritable mountains of iron from various sources around the solar system and then injecting the heated liquidised metal into the core of Venus to enhance its magnetosphere.
In this at least I had measurable tangible proof that the terraforming was on course for my instruments aboard Digger had long ago recorded the increasing strength of Venus’s feeble but expanding magnetosphere. My voyage logs had kept a usable record because of my regular and seasonal visits to the manmade satellites circling Earth’s beautiful sister.
Already, close visits to Venus showed that the dense atmosphere was slowly getting clearer. The captain of the approaching ‘rock-box’ (an affectionate term of endearment amongst spacemen for the moon-sized leviathans,) had told me that he was convinced he had once had a brief wispy view of the surface.
I had known this captain for over ten years because he was one of the few who had discovered that I was Charlie Sage’s grandchild. Consequently we fell to chatting a bit.
He explained that he had just glimpsed some rock formations on a high peak during a severe Venusian, atmospheric storm. He had been depositing liquid iron into the polar shaft, that had been robotically bored from Venus’s surface to the planet centre some three and a half thousand miles deep.
Yes, terraforming Venus was an unimaginably vast project!
“So when will the core become a self-sustaining liquid iron?” I asked him as we fell alongside each other like old bedfellows of the night.
“Geologists reckon we need to inject about another twenty-nine million cubic miles.”
“Geeze, I wouldn’t have thought there was that much iron around.”
“Believe me there is.” He reassured me. “Your grandfather Charlie Sage located a lot of it, but it wasn’t important to him as he was more interested in valuable, rare-earth ores.”
We chatted briefly about various items including the plague on earth then we finally separated as he prepared to sit in stasis over Venus’s pole while I aimed for the primary hydroponic moon where the terraformers mostly resided. This was a unique opportunity for Jamie to visit the ‘hydroponickers’ as we spacemen nicknamed them.
‘Why do space men always look for monikers and nicknames?’ I wondered.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 11
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
After arriving off Venus, we slowly sidled into Venus’s penumbra were the residential hydroponic moon alternated between umbra and penumbra to ensure the ideal environment for habitation. The moon avoided direct sunlight except for a brief sojourn every twenty hours to garnish some warmth from the intense solar heat. As I made contact, their traffic control directed our ship Digger to the most suitable docking port and once again, Jamie relished the responsibility of completing the delicate manoeuvre.
Just as we secured our portal, the moon slowly emerged into the blinding sunlight and Jamie squinted before our UV visors quickly returned to their standard status. As she stepped out of the control seat Jamie turned to me.
“It must be weird having such a messed-up diurnal cycle. Glad I don’t live here.”
I shrugged and smiled indulgently.
“It’s no different from our cycles Babes. We just set our cabin cycles to suit our own needs.”
“I was just thinking about the intensity of the sunlight they get, so close to Sol.”
“Only for a couple of hours every twenty-four, just to recharge their solar panels.”
We stepped through the docking portal into the hygiene station where they checked us for Verna-spiro and finally we were savouring the lush greenery as we checked off our cargo delivery.
“Are you staying long?” The customs officer asked.
I turned to Jamie and asked, “D’ you fancy a tour.”
“It’ll be a break,” she nodded; so we collected a buggy and headed for the main laboratories.
There we indulged Jamie’s curiosity and tasted some of the hybrid fruits and vegetables that were being developed. It never ceased to amaze me that they were mostly concerned with developing heat resistant strains capable of surviving extreme temperatures. I was forced to ask one of the environmentalists if they would ever develop plants that could survive Venus’s lead melting temperatures.
He wagged his head and shrugged as he explained that their first aim was the magnetosphere and then planetary cooling by altering the atmospheric gasses. We grinned as we agreed, I would certainly not live long enough to see completion of such a slow process.
After a thoroughly enjoyable stay, we ate in the communal restaurant then bid our fellow space dwellers farewell. Once back aboard Digger, we checked our almanack and decided Mar’s was next being as Earth was t’other side of sun. We could then depart Mars to pass close to Earth and stop by the moon before Heading to the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
By now the celestial calculations were old hat to Jamie and I reflected that she would one day be hankering to command her own spaceship.
Seven weeks later we returned to Earth with a lucrative cargo or valuable rare metallic ores.
ooo000ooo
We first learned of the turmoil on Earth when we came close enough to receive the media stations reporting the news.
The organisers of the mass kidnapping of the United Nations volunteers had executed over half of their hostages after a failed attempted rescue by the United Nations peace-keeping force. Jamie and I listened in stunned silence as the details were revealed to the interested authorities.
“What the hell did they do that for?” Jamie wondered.
I had no answer.
We continued listening and watching the various commentators and pundits as they wittered on about motives and consequences but it took the situation no further. The basic fact was that three hundred of the six hundred UN, volunteers were lost to mankind and the world was facing a catastrophe as the virus was now seriously beginning to bite.
Then, as we approached close to Earth, we got our first inkling of the shape of things to come.
When we hailed Earth’s regional space control, instead of being invited to dock immediately as had always been the way of things, we were requested to wait in stasis until ‘arrangements’ for a sterile docking could be made.
“Sterile docking?” Jamie wondered, “What does that mean?”
“Sounds like some sort of enhanced quarantine procedure.” I replied as I immediately asked the Earth controller what it meant.
“You will have to wait for two weeks and undergo blood tests before you can step on the planet.”
“That’s bloody ridiculous!” I Protested. “We’re the only ones who can guarantee to be sterile. We were not infected when we left Earth, We did not contact any infected people on the various planets and moons and we’re not infected now. The incubation period’s only a couple of weeks, so we can’t possibly be infected!”
“Those are the Rules Captain. It applies to every ship.”
I turned to Jamie who had already grasped the gravity of our two-week quarantine.
“They’re going to need our blood ASAP!”
As the pregnant silence descended, I took a long slow breath before sighing.
“Looks like we’re gonna’ have to.” Jamie opined. “They haven’t got a vaccine yet and the donor’s bone marrows have not matured yet. Every bloody drop of our blood counts.”
I fell silent as I tried to find an alternative solution but I was stumped. Jamie just looked at me for she could read my mind.
“Admit it Babe’s.”
I sighed again as I was forced to agree.
“Seems your right Babe’s. We can try one thing though.”
“What?” She demanded.
“Maybe I can patch my burner phone through the ship’s own frequency synthesiser and keep the message very short.”
“They’ll still triangulate you. It’s obvious they’re all eyes and ears in case those fucking fundamentalist, ‘end-times’ jihadists have some crazy idea about the virus starting in space. They’ll be watching every single ship that comes within a moon’s span of Earth.”
“I think the security procedures are more to do with keeping a tight lock-down on the virus. Our message has to be brief and coded. We can contact Doctor Williams on the phone then use the ship’s comms to scramble the message. She’s got a much more sophisticated sub-ether retro-coder than the run of the mill internet facilities.
I used to use it when I first started prospecting and every lonely prospector had to keep his discoveries private until the claim could be registered.”
“You can try,” Jamie shrugged, “but every military station will have fancier stuff than us. They’ll soon break the codes.”
“It’ll be just one brief cryptic message and Digger’s encoder will hijack Dr William’s radio for the duration of the conversation.”
“Both ways?” Jamie wondered aloud.
“Both ways.” I confirmed.
“That’s bloody clever!” Jamie exclaimed. “Why was I never told about this before?”
“I haven’t had cause to use it for years. All my claims are registered and protected now so I’ve never used it for about ten years. It’s old technology and we’ll only get a few minutes to use it before the military catch on and fire up their decoding equipment. The secret is to keep it low profile until we make contact. I won’t need to ask to contact Dr Williams, I’ll just call her like a normal mobile call.”
“If you text her, that’ll keep it silent and you can double-encrypt the ensuing audio.” Jamie observed.
“That’ll give us a couple of extra minute’s grace,” I agreed as I dialled the doctor’s number.
The only wrinkle was that my latest burner phone had been used to contact Dr Williams during my previous stay and she would know instantly who was calling. Jamie and my subterfuge was totally dependent on her co-operation. I glanced at Jamie as contact was made. Dr Williams was brusque, which suited Jamie and me perfectly
“Hello!”
“You know who’s phone this is so listen carefully because we are forced to reveal our identity to you and you alone.
We had good cause to be thankful that Dr Williams was no sluggard when grasping situations. We heard her barking out some instructions to somebody who was obviously of military origins. Then I passed my information.
“There is a Spaceship called ‘Digger’ being held in stasis. Land it immediately.”
There a brief but desperately silent pause before Dr Williams realised what was afoot.
“Aah! Yes! Got you. Where do you wish to land?”
I gave her a brief reply and she immediately returned with a military password.
The conversation was no more than a couple of seconds, then I shut down all of Digger’s comms except the scrambler radio. An hour later we landed in Dennis’s freight yard where two discreet unmarked police cars were parked outside Dennis’s office looking for all the world like an ordinary customers. The rest of the yard was functioning normally and our arrival resembled all the previous arrivals that Digger had made except that now everybody was wearing bio suits. Jamie and I stepped out to meet Jack Godfrey the yard foreman who nodded casually towards Dennis’s office.
“Dennis want’s to chat with you.” He explained through his anti-hazard suit.
“Why?” I asked.
“I dunno, can you open the freight hatch for me?”
I paused briefly while Jamie stepped around Digger and entered the freight hatch code, then she re-joined me as we stepped into Dennis’s office. There, two women were waiting for us with viral test kits while Dennis was staring at us in mild disbelief.
“Well you’re a cagey set of buggers!”
I raised a questioning eyebrow and he went on to explain.
“These two ladies didn’t explain much but I had a right to know why two complete strangers wanted to close down my office and freight yard.”
“How d’ you mean?” Jamie pressed.
“A lot’s happened since you left. These ladies are from the new bio-police unit.”
“And?” I asked.
“Oh just that I’ve had to pause all freight traffic into and out of my yard until you’ve left. I was about to raise holy hell until I received an offer I can’t refuse.”
“Which was?” Jamie asked.
“If I kept my mouth shut, I would receive a dose of antivirus. If I blabbed they’d lock me up until you were safe.”
“And have you kept your mouth shut?”
“You bet I have! I’d be a fool not to. Is it really true?”
“Yes.”
“Jeeze!” Dennis gasped. “They’ve told me that my family get to have them as well; on the premise that they believe I might have been exposed to the virus.”
With that one of the two ladies stepped forward with a portable transfusion kit. Dennis glance uncertainly at me for reassurance. We had been close friends for nearly twenty years so his relief was evident as the lady took his arm.
It was obvious that Dennis was not great with needles and he paled noticeably as the nurse smiled encouragement.
“Come now Mr Potter this will only take a couple of minutes, then we shall call upon your wife and two daughters.”
Jamie and I removed our bio helmets and grinned as Dennis nervously extended his arm and flinched. Jamie reassured him while I checked through my cargo manifest so that things looked normal through the window to the yard. It would look as though the nurses had just tested us and given us clearance so that we could remove our helmets indoors.
We chatted to Dennis as he slowly got used to the needle and by the time he had received the inoculation he was almost affable.
“So who’s blood is this?” He asked the nurse.
“Jamie’s.” She replied. “Don’t worry, her transgenderism isn’t infectious!”
“Oh I know all about Jamie nurse. It was me who gave her a break by letting her work in my yard.”
“Yeah. The rest is history.” Jamie finished with a grin. “Give my love to your daughters.”
“Does this mean, my girls won’t have to wear bio suits?”
“Yes and no,” the nurse explained. “They won’t need to wear bios for medical reasons but to avoid questions they’d best wear them until the vaccine is ready.”
“How long will that be?” I pressed, asking the question that everybody was thinking.
“About another three to four months if everything is progressing as we anticipate. This time everybody is co-operating and sharing research.”
“That’ll be a first.” Jamie observed somewhat cynically as the nurse wrapped up Dennis’s transfusion and we prepared to leave. The police inspector with me and Jamie to Oxford where we would meet an impatient Dr Williams while the nurse was to accompany Dennis home to his family.
ooo000ooo
Ass we arrived outside a large laboratory block Jamie looked somewhat disappointed.
“I thought it would be all dreaming spires and students with books,” Jamie observed somewhat disappointedly.
“That’s for the academia and tourists,” the inspector replied. “The real research work is done out of town in the big modern laboratories.”
“Ah well,” Jamie sighed. “I was never destined for all this stuff anyway.”
The inspector looked askance.
“But you must have gone to Oxbridge before graduating to space school!”
“Nah,” I added. “Jamie’s got grandfather rights, she came up the hawsepipe.”
The inspector stared at my young chief mate.
“How old are you kid?”
“Twenty-three and less of ‘the kid’ inspector. I’m a fully qualified space captain.”
“Good god! That’s ridiculously young. It’s usually another two years after graduation before you normally get to board a spaceship. Training and everything.”
I interjected.
“Jamie was working as my spacer before all the regulations came into force. She came to me at sixteen after we met in Dennis’s freight depot. Technically she’s a high school drop out but I can spot brains.”
“Is this because of the transgender thing?” The inspector asked.
“Yeah. It’s never really gone away,” Jamie remarked as we were met by the security team. “You’re okay if you’ve got connections and people who’ll stick up for you but orphan kids from the wrong side of the tracks don’t get much change. Nana Bev’s my saviour, not some idiot on a cross or riding flying donkeys.”
On this note we were hurried towards some secure doors and eventually found ourselves in a place that resembled a prison more than a lab.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 12
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 12
As we stepped into the gloomy atrium Jamie grimaced as she sniffed theatrically.
“I can smell high security at a parsec.”
I smiled at her turn of phrase but she was right. The doors were heavy duty, the windows were small and the lighting was embedded behind thick glass panels. The police inspector nodded confirmation then explained.
“Lots of research goes into infectious diseases in this block. The Verna Spiro research is down through door ten.”
Even as she explained door number ten hissed softly and Doctor Williams emerged with a small group of colleagues. They were not wearing their bio-suit helmets which told me they were obviously beneficiaries of my or Jamie’s blood.
Jamie and I had kept our helmets on pretending to be ‘people at risk’ while in reality it was to avoid being recognised more than necessary.
Further to this, we had left our visor shades active to darken our faces.
Doctor Williams looked askance at our total ensuitment.
“There’s no need for biosecurity in here ladies. You can remove your bio-helmets.”
“We’d rather keep them on Doctor, until we can speak with you alone.”
“Why?”
“The less people who recognise us, the safer we are.” Jamie replied.
Dr Williams digested this and reluctantly conceded our argument.
“Very well ladies, anonymous you shall remain. Are those your normal voices or have you distorted them electronically?”
“They’re mildly distorted,” I confirmed, “but easily understood.”
“Yes indeed.” She agreed. “Would you accompany us to the conference room please?”
“You’d better take these first,” Jamie offered as she handed over our latest offerings of fresh blood taken only a couple of hours earlier that morning.”
“Oh thank you! And so fresh, we get better results if the blood’s fresh.”
Neither Jamie nor I chose to comment about the doctor’s implicit criticism about tardy blood samples and reduced potency. The doctor fully understood our dilemma. Instead we accepted the chairs around the conference table and started to hammer out the details of our continuing co-operation based on the deteriorating security situation.
We learned that several countries had already succumbed to the virus and death rates were virtually de-populating those countries. They had pandered to the ‘unbelievers’ and allowed such protesters to avoid the lock down. They were now paying the price.
The UK had tried to nip the deteriorations in the bud by supplying some precious supplies of our bloods but corruption and incompetence had immediately led to the wrong people gaining benefits. Their political leaders and military henchmen had grabbed the blood donations for themselves so our government labs had immediately curtailed supplies.
The consequence of this was that borders had closed planetwide and all international travel was banned. Things were really serious and getting worse by the day. The only good news was that the volunteers were beginning to show the necessary antibodies. The bad news of course was that there were only six hundred volunteers instead of the aspired to one thousand UN volunteers and three hundred of my country’s volunteers. So six hundred instead of thirteen hundred. Thanks to Islamist fundamentalist kidnappers.
Number crunchers will rightly say that thirteen hundred is a drop in the ocean anyway and the practical consequences of thirteen hundred or six hundred is of little difference. What the world desperately needed was a vaccine, probably derived from Jamie and my bloods. It was Jamie and my bloods mainly because Dr Williams and her team had been working for by far the longest period on our contributions.
ooo000ooo
For the whole of that first day, Jamie and I sweated in our bio suits as issues were discussed and possible rescues of the remaining survivors of the terrorist kidnapping known to be held in the Republic of Congo.
“We know their location,” Dr Williams confirmed, “but they’re too heavily guarded. Lots of the terrorists are ex-military and they are not likely to make silly mistakes if they are attacked.”
“Who’s running the rescue attempt?” Jamie asked the military man across the table.
“It’s an alliance of several countries, China, The North American federation, The European Union and The Central Asian and Siberian Confederation.” He replied.
“So lots of scope for confusion and Chaos,” Jamie opined cynically.
The soldier glared more with frustration than anger for Jamie’s remark contained more truth than the man cared to admit.
“If you can find a better ‘ole’ –“ He riposted. “Every move we make is checked and double checked by the politicians looking to avoid blame.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I added in an endeavour to bring the meeting back to the main issue; - developing a vaccine.”
My country was NOT involved in any fanciful rescue attempt though we were of course lead investigators and researchers into producing a vaccine. The conversation returned to strategies and I began to sense an elephant in the room. Eventually, Doctor Williams came out with it. After several forays into tissue donations she suggested that Jamie made a bone marrow donation.
At first Jamie simply squealed her dissent.
“Flippin’ ‘eck. Haven’t you ‘ad enough of me?”
“Well yes, you’re right,” Dr Williams conceded, but we’ve come across a potential solution to grow some antibodies in a nutritious soup and the ideal starter culture would be some bone marrow from either of you two.”
“So why me and not Beverly?”
“You’re younger Jamie,” Dr Williams answered bluntly for she was certain of one thing; Jamie was not some supersensitive snowflake. After hearing Jamie’s life story earlier that afternoon, she knew Jamie had ‘walked the walk.’
“The truth is girl; your bone marrow is almost certain to survive what we intend to do. Beverly is older and her bone marrow stands less chance – we think.
If the process proves to be successful we will probably ask her to contribute as well.
We’re hoping to grow the ‘soup’ into a self-perpetuating culture that will produce antibodies faster.”
“Is this a ‘hail Mary’ pass?” Jamie squinted suspiciously.
“No. It’s an alternative strategy that some of the team have come up with. We’re exploring every possible avenue. The vaccine route will always be the first option but it’s taking a bit longer than we anticipated. You know full well that time is of the essence.”
Jamie nodded fatalistically and acceded to their request.
“I suppose I’ll ‘ave to. I don’t want to end up as the last person on Earth.”
I shared a knowing grin with my young co-pilot. We’d already chatted about such ideas since The Verna Spiro bug had come to curse mankind. I chuckled as I advised her.
“If you were kiddo, just think, no holier than-thou-s giving you earache.”
Jamie grinned as she flipped me the bird then turned and nodded to Doctor Williams.
“They say it’s a painful op, is that right?”
“No worse than transitioning I should think.” The doctor mused.
“What do you know about transitioning?” Jamie sneered patronisingly.
“Point taken,” Doctor Williams conceded. “Would you be prepared to undergo the marrow extraction tomorrow?”
“Bring it on.” Jamie agreed.
“I’m staying with her!” I declared adamantly.
Dr Williams turned to frown at me.
“Why.”
“Just call it caution. She’s valuable cargo.”
“What! You think they might kidnap her?”
“Define who ‘they’ are,” I countered. “Have you get a really secure intensive care unit hereabouts?”
Doctor Williams sighed and muttered something about paranoia but I wasn’t to be dissuaded.
“I sleep where Jamie sleeps; no arguments!”
She turned to Jamie with a questioning eyebrow.
“Is that what you want?”
“You bet!” Jamie concurred, Nana’s the only person who doesn’t have a reason to exploit my blood.”
Dr Williams’s eyes opened wider with the realisation of what to Jamie and me, was an obvious truth. She shrugged her shoulders with resignation.
“Okay. I’ll have an armed guard posted. Will that do?”
“Yes! Somebody you know and trust,” Jamie finished, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
“Where did you start learning Latin!?” I nearly choked with amusement as the doctor looked askance.
“Since I realised they were after my blood.” Jamie grinned back.
As arrangements were made, the meeting ended and we were taken to a secure ward in the laboratory. We were forced to agree that the building; that resembled a Victorian cotton mill because it’s windows were so small; was an ideal choice from a security point of view.
That evening as Jamie and I prepared to bed down we were amazed at the variety of noises an empty, modern building could serve up.
“You’d think we were staying in a medieval haunted house,” Jamie chuckled.
“It’s the noises outside,” I hazarded as I noted a police officer take station at the door.
We both made ourselves known to him so that he would recognise us and for half an hour we chatted until we decided to bed down.
Jamie, being young, fell asleep quite easily but I lay awake for some time before my body demanded a call of nature. I got up and exchanged a brief word with the poli e guard and padded down the corridor to the lavatory. I pondered why the ward we were sleeping in did not have an ‘en ’suite’ lavatory but concluded that it was not ordinarily a hospital ward. The building was a laboratory not a hospital.
On returning to the ward I noticed that the police guard had left his post and I rushed along the corridor to learn that both guard and Jamie had gone!
ooo000ooo
To my horror I quickly learned that there was no alarm or emergency call button for the lab had never been destined to function as an IC unit. Fortunately, I had not left my phone by my bed and I quickly reached for it from my little ‘bum-bag’ which pretty much went wherever I went. Even so, it was a distressingly long time before Dr Williams answered her phone.
“She’s gone. She’s been kidnapped I think.” I shouted into my phone as I searched for the exit route.
“What about the guard?” Dr Williams demanded.
“What about him!” I almost snarled. “He must have been in on it!”
There was a curse on the other end but I paid no heed. When Dr Williams advised me to wait I did not even answer her suggestions or orders. I snapped my phone shut and dashed down to the main entrance to find the regular security guard bound and gagged. I was just relieved to find him at least alive which indicated that Jamie’s kidnappers were perhaps not hellbent on violence.
He could not tell me much except to describe the clothes the four kidnappers had been wearing and to his dismay, the kidnappers had obviously located the camera recorder and stolen the recording memory chip. The only thing he could describe about the getaway vehicle was that it was white and it was a levitator.
All that told me was that the kidnappers had access to sophisticated and expensive resources. Levitation craft were not very common amongst ordinary people for they gave an inordinate degree of freedom to the owners and operators. The security surrounding levitators had been tightened up considerably during my own lifetime and getting a levitation vehicle license was akin to getting a gun license. An operators driving license was relatively easy but an owners license was a totally different kettle of fish.
The ownership of such craft was usually a corporate or government privilege. Sadly, because the video evidence had been taken, we had no registration record of the kidnappers escape craft.
I Had nothing to go on and I was now stuck awaiting Dr William’s appearance. To say I was angry about the security failures was putting it mildly!
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 13
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 13
While waiting for Dr Williams to show her face, I turned to the security guard and because the police had not yet arrived, we were alone in the reception foyer. Firstly, I managed to persuade him to run through any security material he had for the whole site and not just the laboratory block. Eventually we managed to get a view of a craft that was definitely suspect. It had been parked at the far end of the parking area and we estimated it had moved towards the block at approximately when Jamie had been kidnapped.
When it moved towards the laboratory block we managed to get a vague image of the only driver at the control console then the craft disappeared out of sight from the camera. It had obviously located outside the entrance where the kidnappers had attacked the weekend guard and tied him up as they stretchered the unconscious Jamie out of the main front door.
I could not believe they had been so quick and so brazen but the building was virtually deserted at an early time on a Sunday morning. The guard tried adjusting the remote car-park camera and eventually got a better image of the rear of the craft and we were fairly certain we might have had half of the registration plate. I turned to the guard and advised him.
“When the police arrive, don’t tell them that I’ve got the registration call sign. I’m not staying around here until they turn up. Just tell them I’ve gone searching for them.”
I gave the guard my address but I wasn’t going home, I was going to Dennis’s freight depot to use Digger. There was no knowing where the gang had gone but my suspicions were confirmed when I decided to narrow my search down to the local mosques.
The kidnappers of the UN volunteers were known to be a jihadist organisation so the obvious place to start was their local ‘command-and-control’ centres. This was usually, well almost invariably, a mosque but the city had about a dozen mosques and I had no idea which ones were the radical ones.
One of the benefits of being a spaceship captain and an owner-commander of my own ship meant that I was licensed to travel freely to all parts of any country where I had visa permissions and license validity.
Ordinary citizens were bound by strict traffic and altitude controls rather like the old days when private aircraft were restricted to zones in the sky where they would not interfere with commercial or military traffic.
In my home country, these limits were an altitude of one thousand metres and in the free flight zones and no more than 50 kilometres outside national sea borders. It meant that any ordinary private craft was quite severely restricted and those restrictions were rigidly enforced be the vast majority of responsible countries.
The jihadist kidnappers were a rogue state in central Africa that was on the verge of being taken to task concerning its piratical behaviour. The fanatics who had hijacked the government were not open to negotiation.
ooo000ooo
Having now taken to the sky in Digger I had to deploy my powerful minerology cameras to locate the mosques and examine the traffic immediately close to their locations. I was looking for white hover vans of the same make as the one we had seen leaving the carpark. Patience was the name of the game but I did at least have a programmable identikit that when programmed to spot a certain type and make, could scan and recognise infinitely faster than the human eye and brain.
Normally I used the scanner to identify likely rock formations or crystal structures from a high altitude then if something looked likely I would zoom in and zoom down to examine a likely prospect.
The same camera was used by various authorities and loaded accordingly to suit each authority’s agendas. Military used them to locate bodies, farmers used them to locate and identify cattle, police used them to locate traffic offenders or getaway cars and so on. All it needed was to load a different programme into the camera.
Normally I used my camera to identify rocks or for centring on cargo loading or landing positions. All I had to do was download a traffic authority programme and as an interplanetary spaceship I automatically had clearance to do so. Within minutes of ascending, I had a programmed, look-down capability and I started cautiously quartering the city.
Call it a nose for stuff, possibly developed from my prospecting activities; but I soon spotted a white craft with registration markings that contained the partial registration of the craft the cameras had detected in the parking lot of the hospital where Jamie was kidnapped. On closing in with my high-res camera I confirmed to myself that this was the likely culprit. I kept my camera tightly focused while phoning Dr Williams at the hospital to report my find.
“Where the hell are you?!” She almost screeched as I heard police sirens wailing discordantly in the background.
“I’m where your bloody security guards should be!”
“You’re required to give a report to the police! You discovered the crime!”
“Never mind that. I think I’ve located the kidnappers.”
“Where?” She almost screamed.
I was about to tell her when some men emerged from the mosque and to my delight, I recognised one as the security guard from the hospital. Immediately I confirmed my find.
“Yes! I’ve definitely located the gang. The security guard was in on it! What sort of security setup are you operating in that bloody hospital?”
“Where!” She screeched again. “Where are you?”
“They’ve just emerged from the Ibrahim Noor mosque on the corner of Dale street and Princess Road.”
“Have they got Jamie?”
I was about to say no when two more men emerged carrying what looked like a long box capable of holding a body.
“It looks like it, two big men have come out struggling with a coffin sized box. The craft has backed up to them and they’re in a high-walled yard, loading it!”
With that, another voice broke through to interrupt my conversation with Dr Williams.
“Who’s that?” I demanded.
“We’re the police. Sit rep please.”
Being a spaceship captain I knew the universal English shorthand that security and armed forces used and I promptly entered their professional nomenclature.
“What callsign?”
“Golf, Bravo, Sierra; Nine, Nine, Nine, Seven, Seven, Zulu.
“Good!” I exclaimed. They’re in a White Lev-craft Reg “; – and I gave the number before recording my own status.
“I am above them in my spacecraft observing them speeding down Princess Road. It looks as though they are not flying yet to avoid attracting attention.”
“Good, stay with them please we are on our way.”
“Are you armed?” I asked.
“Of course. This is deemed a terrorist incident.”
I typed in my co-ordinates and the police craft soon appeared below me. I decided to ignore Dr William’s advice to return to the laboratories and follow the pursuit instead. Keeping in touch with the activities below was a simple task. An interplanetary spaceship has vast spare capacity. Then a dark thought struck me and I called the police again.
“Yes.” They replied promptly.
“Don’t shoot into the Craft.” I advised. “It’s believed to be carrying the kidnap victim.”
“We know. Have you any idea as to why the victim was kidnapped?”
A bone-chilling realisation ran through my mind. The police were not aware who or what Jamie was. I double checked.
“Has the laboratory explained who the victim is?”
There was no time for niceties, now the police had to be told and I explained quickly.
“The kidnap victim is currently one of only two suppliers of medical material to combat the Verna Spiro Virus. Her blood is priceless.”
The silence was deafening as I heard the police digesting the news. Then they spoke.
“We were not advised of that.”
“Fuck!” I cursed audibly before contacting Dr Williams.
“Why weren’t they told?” I demanded to know.
“Communications are not keeping up with developments,” she confessed defensively.
“Did you get that?” I asked the police craft.
A somewhat brittle, angry “Yes!” confirmed their acknowledgement and I could hardly blame the officers. They were heading into what was almost certainly a gunfight and information was vital.
The next communique confirmed that they were leaving the coast and heading over the sea. The police craft confirmed that they had limited jurisdiction and I listened to them calling up the border security patrols. I could detect uncertainty creeping into their voices as they contemplated the kidnapper’s plans. They were checking with the border security about detection ranges and radar performance. Here I was able to help and I enlightened the police.
“Until you have a naval craft on the scene, my lookdown capacity will track the pursuit. There is no ground clutter now and targets are fewer. I’m coming down lower so you can see me.”
There was notable sense of relief in the police reply as they offered their thanks.
“Thanks for your assistance, we are assuming you are a spaceship of some type.”
“Correct; I’m an interplanetary, geological exploration craft. Virtually unlimited range and I note the fugitive is heading west out over the Atlantic. He’s not taking a direct course to central Africa if that’s were we think he might be bound. I can easily keep track of him but I have no entrapment capability.”
“Okay. Please just keep track of the target until we get some decent backup.”
“Any idea when?” I pressed.
“There are two military craft within ten minutes.” They confirmed
This news lifted a weight off my mind and I settled down to an easy pursuit. Then his course became erratic. I could see no reason for the frequent course and speed changes for he could not escape my surveillance. I could only assume he had hopes of somehow shaking me off. It wasn’t going to happen. I was high above him looking down and I now had a radar lock and profile analysis.
I settled down to follow the kidnappers until my comms burst into life again as a naval craft hailed me. After a quick sit-rep he advised me to stay available while they tackled the situation. They wanted me to confirm Jamie’s identity, if or when they rescued her. Relieved to be released of immediate responsibility, I fell back about a nautical mile as the second naval craft appeared and the two military spaceships immediately discussed a recovery plan. I was not made a party to their deliberations except to obey their orders and remain handy.
By now, we had left the coast behind and we were heading out over the open ocean. I began to realise that the kidnappers had obviously planned to rendezvous with some other party because their small domestic hover-van certainly did not have the range to cross the ocean westwards or reach central Africa going south. The naval craft had also realised this and I received a message warning me to look out for any likely craft capable of receiving the fugitive craft.
To this end, I ascended to a much higher altitude and utilised my specialised ‘look-down’ mineral analysis camera to latch onto radar targets that appeared on my radar.
Within another ten minutes, a likely target quickly approached and revealed itself to have an obvious interest in our quarry.
The naval craft instructed me to descend close to the fugitive and keep myself between the fugitive and the interested visitor. Then they advised me of their plan.
“We believe he’s going to try and recover the fugitive craft and hustle it to central Africa.”
“Then why don’t you shoot him down?” I demanded.
“We are not at war.”
“No! But it’s a police action to prevent a kidnapping; an act of piracy even?” I countered.
“Diplomacy is the watchword Captain. There’s still the delicate matter of any surviving UN hostages.”
This sent a stab of hot anger through my guts. My sole interest was Jamie and her safe recovery. I almost swore at the commander of the lead warship but eventually managed to control my anger and slowly descended again to create the obstruction the commander had requested.
ooo000ooo
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 14
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 14.
After reassuring myself that the two naval craft were more than capable of arresting the fugitive kidnap craft, I manoeuvred Digger to block the approaching rendezvous craft from having a direct line of sight to the kidnappers and the naval commander of the lead warship gave a brief approval over the coms.
“Good move Digger, try and maintain that trigonometry while we prepare a strategy.”
“Copy.” I confirmed briefly to avoid revealing any plan the navy might have.
To this end, I continued interrupting the rendezvous craft’s line of sight but this compelled me to approach closer and closer to the kidnap craft that carried Jamie. Then I heard one of the naval craft warn the approaching ship.
“Unidentified craft approaching the small white craft insinuated between the two naval craft, we must warn you that the craft contains fugitives and a kidnap victim. If you fail to withdraw, we will be forced to shoot.”
The tension mounted as the stranger continued closing the distance and I found myself getting too close to the kidnappers. Eventually the strangers approached so close that I could see the occupants in the forward command cockpit. Even as I watched them, I saw a portal reveal itself and instantly recognised it as a missile port.
In panic, I yanked on digger’s control column and swooped violently upwards as a missile appeared with its nose protruding threateningly from the missile port. I screeched into my coms.
“He’s going to’ shoot!”
Even as Digger lurched upwards with a crushing force, I felt my knees buckle just as there was a deafening bang from somewhere on Digger’s underside. As I recovered my senses; Digger’s hull integrity alarm was screeching agonisingly loud and I lashed out in fright to disable it’s brutal assault on my ears.
As the screeching subsided I quickly scanned my side console to discover that a leak had appeared in my hull. A further check confirmed that none of Digger’s engines had been damaged.
“Thank fuck for that,” I cursed silently as I now found time to learn what was happening to my attacker.
The Navy had not been slow. My attacker had two modest smoking holes in the engine pods and he was slowly losing his antigravity charge. More importantly, his hull integrity was also seriously breached so he was not going into space.
As I recovered my wits, my comms crackled into life again. There was none of the military formality to the message, just a plain language question tinged with concern.
“Spaceship Digger. What’s the damage to your ship?”
I hesitated uncertainly for I knew I had been hit but I had no idea of the extent of the damage. Even as I responded, I was testing various controls and functions. Eventually I replied with some relief.
“I’ve got hull damage and the underside has been penetrated but my engines are all functional. His missile was perfectly accurate and struck the middle dead centre of the underside of my hull but I was already climbing and banking when it struck. It must have impacted at an angle and glanced off to ricochet off before exploding. There is a split in the hull but the explosive shaped charge must have been misdirected by the angle of deflection.
My manoeuvrability is good but I cannot go into space without my space suit.”
“We’ve no intentions of going into space. We just need to capture the kidnap craft. The trouble is, we cannot use weapons on such a vulnerable small craft.”
“Can you not use a gravity tether?” I asked.
“We don’t have them, we’re low orbit patrol ships. We have no hard pads to accept the impact. The bigger ships have them.”
I did a double take for I had always assumed that all naval craft had gravity tethers if only to secure themselves to smaller objects like asteroids and meteors or even just as mooring ropes where there was no dedicated dock. To me, not having gravity tethers was serious shortcoming to any sort of craft designed to go to undeveloped locations and do unusual operations.
Once again, it seemed that Naval craft were coming up short for want of equipment and cash.
“Fur coat and no nickers again,” I muttered to myself with dissatisfaction as I informed the commander.
“I’ve got gravity tethers, two of them in fact to balance any load..”
“Have you got a hard spot to land the fugitive.”
“I’m a cargo ship commander, I’ve got a whole cargo hold.”
The commander replied without hesitation.
“Do it. Now!”
So I did.
ooo000ooo
My spaceship Digger has a capacity of about three thousand cubic metres when my hatches are closed. Consequently, it was no problem to extend the gravity tethers out to the kidnappers craft and slowly reel it in. All I had to do was reverse my ship just as supply boats approach their oil platforms and gently but irresistibly, pull their ‘hover-van’ into the cargo hold. Once it was held down, I simply closed the hatch and asked the naval commander where they wanted the kidnappers delivered to.
He declared that they had no instructions then asked if I had somewhere in mind.
I explained that the kidnappers had kidnapped Jamie from the vaccine research laboratory and that I felt that the vaccine research team would very much like to have Jamie back. I had to explain that Jamie was in no way being detained by the researchers and that she was a volunteer.
There ensued a detailed conversation with my explaining the whole situation. Then; during our return, the naval craft organised a reception committee for when we landed and exposed the kidnappers. As we returned to loiter briefly over the laboratory block a reception committee comprising mostly armed police, ascended to meet us and escort me down to the landing park.
The warship loitered overhead because the landing lark was too small to accommodate two craft of ship size, but the police craft buzzed around digger like wasps around jam. Once I had touched down, I explained to the chief police inspector how the cargo hatch would open and fold back then to be ready arrest the hover-van. There was one little wrinkle I also had to add.
“Officer, your men will have to wear gravity neutraliser suits to operate within the cargo hold because the whole cargo hold is gravity activated so the hover van is pinned down by its own additional weight. It’s a spaceship, cargo security thing.”
There was a pregnant pause from the police inspector then I heard a brief chuckle from the warship’s bridge radio as they savoured my explanation. As the silence persisted the commander interrupted.
“We’ve got spare gravity neutraliser suits and a squad of marines to do the arrest.”
“Okay. Do your best commander but don’t harm the hostage, she’s valuable.”
While the navy boys and their marine colleagues prepared to assault the van I kept in regular contact with their commander who asked.
“Are you able to localised the gravity force within the cargo hold?”
“Sorry commander,” I apologised, “It’s not that sophisticated. It’s main function is just to capture and hold down cargo in gravity free space. I can increase the force if you want but I don’t know how the hostage is secured. If she’s bound over and bent, the extra gee could crush her chest and suffocate her. All I can say is she looked to be laid out in a coffin shaped box when they carried her.”
I watched the commander nodding his head thoughtfully as they contemplated their tactics. As they chatted amongst themselves the commander turned again to me.
“Can you switch the gravity on and off at will?”
“I’ll have to ‘zero’ the settings for this planet, hold on a minute while I adjust the datum level.”
After checking the readings, it was a simple task to negate the normal effects of the Earth’s gravity. The readings were a standard datum second only to the zero settings for space. The commander and I agreed what hand signals he would use and then I watched through my cargo-hold cameras as his men cautiously approached the hover van.
The kidnappers had made a serious mistake by choosing a windowless van to smuggle their hostage because they could not see behind them. Then there were two sharp ‘cracks’ as the marines shot out the driving mirrors to further restrict the kidnapper’s rear view.
Then the commander spoke again to me.
“Can you dim your hold lights; we’ve got night vision?”
“Then I won’t be able to see you, you’ll have to give me your requests over the radio.”
“Okay.” He agreed. “I’ll use the radio.
All I could do then was to sit patiently until his instruction snapped over the comms.
“Gravity off. Now!”
I instantaneously switched it off and was left wondering what was afoot. Then the next instruction barked through.
“Gravity on!”
I complied immediately then the requests alternated every few seconds but I could neither hear, nor see what was going on. Eventually the marine lieutenant explained.
“We’ve got them. Your hostage is bruised but conscious.”
I swallowed uncertainly as I asked.
“How badly is she hurt?”
“Nothing serious from us. She’s got a black eye and a cut lip, but that was the kidnappers. It’s mainly her dignity. You can switch the hold lights on again.”
I did so and immediately saw Jamie sitting on the box beside the hover-van that had imprisoned her, while the Marines were securing the kidnappers, - none too gently either. The marine lieutenant was handing her the radio so I called to her.
“How are you love?”
“Bloody pissed!” She cursed. “It’s secure here now, can you let me into the cabin.”
“Doesn’t the lieutenant want to debrief you?”
“He said he’ll do it after these bastards are sorted. Let me in.”
I released the air-lock door and she stumbled into the command station. There I checked her over and soon after the lieutenant entered looking very satisfied with himself.
“We’ve identified two of the kidnappers, they’re a big catch. The plod are keen to get their hands on both of them. As to the others, we’re still talking to the police. They’re carrying a few bruises and such, but my boys had few old scores to settle from way back. They’ll need a bit of medical attention.”
“I couldn’t care fucking less!” Jamie cursed. “Vicious bastards! Especially that red bearded one. He made a big thing of my transgender stuff. He even asked their boss if he could fuck me!”
“Well, he won’t be doing much for a while. He lost an eye in the fight and his other eye is swollen shut. His red beard tells me he’s a haji.”
“What’s that?” Jamie asked as she handed the lieutenant a welcome mug of tea.
“Oh, he’s been on a pilgrimage to Mecca.”
“Ooh! One of those. Somebody should send his balls to Mecca.
The lieutenant smiled then nodded to me.
“Is there enough tea in that pot for the men?”
“Maybe, but not enough cups I suspect. They’ll have to take turns.
“That’ll work. You can let the police on board now.”
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 15
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 15
With my partner Jamie safely back in the medical laboratory and my Spaceship ‘Digger’ transferred to the repair dock at Dennis’s freight yard. I had time on my hands. Unfortunately, it was time I could not use freely. I was still a target for any unscrupulous agency and I could not simply walk abroad without a risk of being kidnapped myself.
This meant I was escorted everywhere by a trio of guards and that meant we were forced to curtail any activities that might remove me from the cocoon of protection they provided. Fortunately, the guards proved to be intelligent men and women so there was scope for conversation and flexibility and my movements within the safe areas we had determined, were pretty free.
Jamie’s bone-marrow extraction was a painful operation and she was bed-bound for nearly a week while her femur recovered from the invasion and the large, deep scar on her thigh healed. Throughout that first week I more or less loitered around Jamie’s IC unit and pestered Doctor Williams about progress with,-
a: the progress of the volunteers with their blood antibody mutations and,
b: any progress with the vaccine?
To satisfy my curiosity and reduce my persistent interruptions, Doctor Williams first showed me around the hostel where the volunteers were lodged. Then she took me to the laboratories where they were testing and developing thousands of vaccine preparations.
In the labs I had fully expected to see rack upon endless rack of test tubes being stirred and tested and centrifuged while endless pipets charged yet more phials with assorted fluids. As production processes went, this arrangement made bottling in a brewery look like medieval alchemy.
What I had not expected was the ‘communications room’ with wall-to-wall computer banks exchanging information with laboratories world-wide. Doctor Williams explained.
“We’ve learned our lessons about secret researches by ‘big pharma’ and privately licensed vaccines costing big bucks.
The previous pandemics were mild by this bug’s standards. The Covid pandemics were almost benign compared with the Verna virus. It’s infection rate is eighty percent fatal on first exposure and almost one hundred percent on second exposure. That’s why it proved so terrifying when it first appeared.
Your and Jamie’s appearance as immune arrivals from space was quite literally a gift from the gods.”
“I don’t believe in gods doctor, neither does Jamie.”
“Yes, we’ve gathered that, trouble is there are literally millions of religious nut-cases out there who ‘belieeeve!’” She sighed.
“Yeah. Don’t we know it!” I concurred. “Jamie’s really pissed about it. Like me, she broke with religion almost as soon as she was free of her childhood. All that fucking religious bigotry and abuse surrounding her gender problems. For us, it’s often escape or die.”
“But that’s all illegal now.”
“On paper, yes it is. But there’s still an undertow of transphobia that runs like a secretive river of persecution through some toxic male psyches. I can’t explain it, but it’s there.
It seems to associate with alpha masculinity like it did in my family. Fortunately, my share in my grandfather’s antigravity science benefits, enabled me to step out from under and do my own spaceship stuff.
My spaceship Digger is the outcome. I can build my own antigravity craft if I choose to but I live as a sleeping partner and let the rest of the family do their thing. I don’t bother them and they don’t bother me now.
Space is big enough.
“D’ you ever meet with your family?” Dr Williams wondered.
“Nope,” I replied, “like Jamie, we’re both pretty much estranged.”
By now we had returned to the IC unit where Jamie was gingerly testing her weakened leg. The therapists were encouraging her to walk and I busied myself with the tea kettle as Jamie limped tentatively.
“Is it sore love?” I asked.
“You won’t believe it but the sodding bone actually aches.” She cursed.
“Give it another week,” Dr Williams encouraged
ooo000ooo
The following morning when my escorts and I arrived at the laboratory IC ward, we found Jamie eating breakfast in the staff refectory, sat between two substantial looking guards. They twitched protectively until Jamie reassured them as I remarked.
“Up and about I see Babes, how’s the leg?”
“Sore, but I can put more weight on it.”
“Good, - good. I congratulated her. When’s your next blood donation?”
“They say I’ll have to wait a month or two until the bone marrow replenishes itself.”
I was considering this interruption to our blood donations when Dr Williams arrived in something of a hurry. She had obviously been informed of my arrival and had something important to convey. I looked up expectantly as she started in without even wishing me a good morning.
“Hello Nana Bev; may I call you that.”
I shrugged and smiled as I replied. “I’ve been called worse; be my guest.”
“Well Jamie told me yesterday that you had some sperm frozen.”
I glanced at Jamie and frowned before replying.
“She had no right to but I suppose it’s water over the dam now.”
“Well there’s been something of a development.”
“Go-oo oo-on,” I replied suspiciously.
“Well Jamie says that her biggest regret is that she cannot have children.”
“Yes. I know that. We all know that; the no babies part anyway.”
“Well,” – Doctor Williams hesitated. “We might, - and it’s a big might! We might be able to do something about that.”
I narrowed my eyes and frowned uncertainly as I tried to figure out what was going on. Finally I asked cautiously.
“How?”
“A womb transplant.”
“Who’s womb?” I asked bluntly as I turned to Jamie.
“My sister’s.” Jamie replied.
“I thought you’d lost touch with your family.” I charged her.
“So did I,” she replied, “apparently they didn’t lose track of me.”
“Go on.” I pressed.
So Doctor Williams explained.
“The Stockholm institute in Sweden have conducted several hundred successful womb transplants but mainly mother-daughter and sister-sister operations.”
“I’ve heard about them but never paid much heed to them,” I replied. “I thought I read somewhere that they were not interested in transgender procedures.”
“That was before Verna Spiro.”
“You’ve lost me now.” I confessed.
“Come to my office and I’ll explain.” She asked while adding to Jamie. “You come along as well girl. You’re integral to this.”
I noticed a distinct flutter of emotion flicker across Jamie’s face as we left the table. For Doctor Williams’s office.
“D’ you mind telling me what’s going on?” I asked as Jamie limped painfully along the corridor.
“D’ you want a wheelchair?” I asked her solicitously.
“I need to exercise it; it helps the blood circulation in the marrow.” She panted.
I nodded knowingly and somewhat sympathetically but it concerned me to see her struggling to keep up beside us. Eventually I tugged at Doctor Williams’s lab coat and glared at her.
“Slow down woman! Fair’s fair.”
Dr Williams seemed reluctant to slow down but my forceful intervention seemed to temper her urgency. Eventually, after two long corridors and a set of stairs we reached her own private office and Jamie almost collapsed into the only available executive chair. Doctor Williams was compelled to pull up an ordinary office chair to her desk while I hefted my arse up onto the medical table.
“So what’s all the hurry; - and secrecy?” I added for good measure.
“I’ll come straight to the point.” Doctor Williams explained. “The Verna Spiro virus has appeared in Sweden; they are in total lockdown.”
“Like lots of other places.” I pointed out. “What’s the difference?”
“It’s appeared in the Stockholm Fertility and Maternity research centre.”
“You mean the womb transplant clinic?”
“Yes.”
“So how does this affect you and the virology-vaccine research?”
“Frankly, it doesn’t directly, but Professor Servensen is the lead researcher and her team is the main centre of excellence. If they die the technology surrounding womb transplants and transferable fertility will die with her. Already, some of her team are infected with Verna-Spiro. If they die, womb transplants will be set back several decades and transgender womb transplants might be put back for a hundred years considering the transphobic rumours surrounding your and Jamie’s blood. If the vaccine science is delayed, fertility is going to become important.”
“I turned to Jamie as the gears started to mesh in my head.”
“And you still want a womb and a baby.”
Jamie nodded then I turned to Doctor Williams.
“What transphobic rumours?”
She frowned as she explained.
“While you’ve been lying low, you’ve been ‘out-of-the-loop’ somewhat. Go online some time and do a couple of searches. Let’s just say, there are transphobic loonies out there accusing us of trying to do all sorts of crazy stuff. If you came right out and identified yourself as transgendered blood donors, your protection squad could be hard put to protect you.”
“Fuck!” I muttered to myself as Jamie nodded confirmation of Dr Williams’s word.
“So why the hurry.” I asked.
“Doctor Servensen and her team are already in the air flying secretly to the UK. We’re hoping to treat them here with your blood. Jamie’s still too anaemic to donate.”
“Who’s authorised this.” I asked.
“Technically, we don’t need government authorisation. This whole set up is correctly designated as a research laboratory and our license gives us the authority to treat people. However, it’s still your blood and you have to consent to donate each half-litre before we can plasmatise the products.”
I sniggered as my physics head visualised the procedure.
“I thought stuff only got plasmatised during nuclear fusion.”
“Yes, that and all.” She smiled hopefully. “Are you agreeable to donating some blood?”
“I’m not due to donate for another two weeks. Haven’t you got any in stock?”
“No. We’re on a razor edge of supply and demand; - well , demand far exceeds supply, as you know.”
“Okay then. Only this once. For Jamie’s sake and the chance for her to have a womb transplant.”
“It’ll also save Professor Servensen’s team’s lives- and that can’t be bad.” Doctor Williams added.
Just then another thought struck me.
“Just a minute. This seems to be a heck of a lot of organising just to try and help Jamie’s dreams along. There’s no certainty that Jamie will even get a compatible, donatable womb.
“There is Nana.” Jamie interjected.
I stared at her as my mind tried to put it together.
“Do tell.”
ooo000ooo
“I’ve still got my own hopes and dreams Nana,” Jamie declared.
“I know that Babe’s,” I replied, “I’ve never denied that. But how? Where will you find a compatible womb?”
“There’s been a development.” She revealed.
“What sort of development; where.”
“It’s my youngest sister.”
I had long known that Jamie had a family but they had long ago shunned her because of her transgenderism. Jamie was the youngest of four children, three daughters then a son; Jamie. It was the fact that the only son had turned out to be transgendered that had compounded the sense of betrayal and failure amongst Jamie’s parents. Some entrenched, cultural mores never seemed to die.
They had wanted a son to ‘carry on the family name’.
Consequently, the parental prejudice had rubbed off on the two older daughters and only the youngest daughter had remained sympathetic to Jamie and maintained any sort of contact with her youngest sibling. I knew that Jamie kept in touch with her.
“What about her?” I asked.
“She called me a couple of days ago.”
“And?” I pressed her.
“She’s caught the virus. Her husband and children are infected as well.”
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry. They’ll be in isolation then.”
“They live on a farm way out in the sticks. They’re better isolated than any city security zone. They’re staying on the farm until the whole family are dead, Just hanging together and waiting for the axe to fall.”
“There are worse ways to go,” I observed sympathetically.
“Can you help me Nana?”
I knew what was coming but I did not realise just how much was coming.
“You know the protocols darling. There can’t be any favouritism.”
“Fuck the protocols!” Jamie cursed. “It’s my bloody sister we’re talking of here. I never signed up to any protocols, we only agreed to have a say in who could NOT abuse our donations! We never mentioned who might have any preference. As far as I’m concerned I have a right to donate some blood to the only family I can call my own. The trouble is, I cant give blood until my bone marrow is replenished.”
I fell silent for a moment until Jamie delivered the next sucker punch.
“She’s offered me a deal I can’t refuse.”
“Oh! Go on.”
“If I give her and her family blood, she’s offered to donate her womb and ovaries to me so that I can have a baby.”
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 16
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 16.
Jamie’s words fairly took my breath away. We had long known that Jamie had always hoped for the chance one day to become a mother but until now it had always been a forlorn hope. The technology for womb transplants had been well established for several decades and indeed there had been several transgender operations but they had met with very little success.
Furthermore, attempts to transplant into Trans individuals had met with a lot of adverse publicity and even violent protests on a couple of occasions in different countries. Consequently the medical profession had avoided the political issues like the plague and this had virtually closed out any hopes for the transgender community.
I stared at my erstwhile friend and smiled. She looked so nervous yet hopeful lying in her IC bed and for a moment a tear forced its way to my eye. Finally I recovered from the surprise of her announcement.
“Your sister!” I croaked softly.
Then I realised it was essentially a very pragmatic deal.
If Jamie’s sister received my or Jamie’s blood she would survive the virus. If that donation were also supplied to Jamie’s three nieces, nephew and brother-in-law then the essential sympathetic component of Jamie’s family would survive to give Jamie some connectivity and identity.
In return Jamie’s sister could donate her womb, ovaries and even her cervix because the sister already had three daughters and a son.
Doctor Williams could see my mind ticking portentously but she misinterpreted my thoughts and swiftly intervened with a moral bribe for fear of the deal falling through.
“If you help Jamie, you’ll be helping the transplant team because they’ll be needed to conduct the surgery. You’ll be helping mankind.” She finally added hoping it was a conclusive argument.
I smiled inwardly at first, as I sensed Doctor William’s desperation; then my smile broke out to my lips as I failed to contain my amusement.
“I’m already helping mankind doctor.” I intoned softly.
The expression on her face tightened monetarily before she realised I was winding her up; then her smile broke out with relief before she scolded me.
“Don’t do that! I’m wound enough as it is.”
“Then you’d better calm down and prepare to take my blood. Let Jamie get her rest if she’s going to face major surgery.”
“Aa ah! Thank god for that!” She sighed as she collapsed into the bedside chair and glare irritably at me. “Don’t do that!”
“She’s always doing stuff like that,” Jamie interrupted. “She’s a bitch!”
I chuckled and turned to make some coffee whilst softly reciting. -----
“Fee, fi, fo, fum! I smell the blood of excambium.”
“Stoppit Nana!” Jamie Chided.
“Is she always like this?” Doctor Williams hazarded. “I’m surprised you haven’t murdered her on those long lonesome voyages.”
“Haven’t you got a plane to meet?” I asked.
ooo000ooo
Doctor Williams glanced at her watch and frowned.
“Dammit! We’d better get moving. D’ you want to come?”
“Nah, I’d be better off staying here and donating blood.”
“Dammit! Of course. I forgot! Some of Professor Servensen’s team are three days into their infections.”
“Then best we crack on,” I advised; without humour; “time’s a runnin’.”
With no more ado, she dragged me down to the laboratory and handed me to the blood donor team as she prepared to drive to a military airfield, outside Swindon.
“You’re a bit early for another donation.” The team leader exclaimed as she tapped the calendar on the laboratory wall.
“It’s a special,” I explained, “Doctor Williams will explain as soon as she gets back.”
“There isn’t supposed to be any favouritism, it’s for essential personnel only.”
“Just do it!” I snapped rather irritably. “It’s my blood anyway, so give me a break occasionally.”
She harrumphed her objection but I gave her a meaningful stare and nodded towards my outstretched arm.
“A hundred cc and no more! She’ll explain when she gets back.”
“Very well, but you can sign a disclaimer.”
“Oooh Jeeze!” I sighed. “Give me a pen and paper!”
Her assistant scrabbled through a desk and returned with a pen and notebook. I hand-wrote the disclaimer and thrust it towards her.
“That’ll have to do, it’s in my own handwriting. You couldn’t ask for a more authentic document. Now – make some vaccine ASAP!”
She moved quickly and we had cause to be grateful when Doctor Williams returned that evening with a busload of infected medical staff. The vaccine team were aboard the bus with needles and vaccines before the Swedes could even disembark. All but one of the Swedish team were inoculated and secured in the laboratory hostel. The seriously ill remaining individual was promptly placed in the ICU.
After the task was completed I spoke to Doctor Williams.
“The sick one Doc; he looks really bad. Is it too late?”
“We’ll have to see Nana. This’ll be a useful test sample and we’ll be monitoring his condition constantly. We’ve never had one this far gone before.”
“You don’t have to call me Nana Doc. You’re older than I am.”
“I heard Jamie calling you that and it seems like a term of endearment. If you’ve no objections, I’ll continue using it because it helps my vaccine team relate to your contribution.”
“Okay.” I shrugged. “No skin off my nose.”
We were sharing a coffee in Doctor Williams’s office-cum-lab when the vaccine team leader reappeared.
“We’ve got some surplus vaccines.”
“Put them in the fridge, they’re for Jamie’s Sister’s family; and don’t go protesting favouritism. It’s part of another experiment concerning all these Swedes who’ve just arrived.”
“Am I right in believing they are Professor Servensen’s womb transplant team from Stockholm?”
“Yes. It’s a back-up plan if the mass vaccine plan proves less successful than planned.”
“Hah! Good luck with that. Your logistics don’t make sense.”
“It’ll be the last chance saloon scenario but we have to plan for all eventualities. Talking of last-chance saloons, how is the general vaccine development plan going?”
“The predictions are on course. I’m reckoning in six months we’ll have something viable for universal distribution.”
“And what about the volunteer group?”
“It’s not gone as quickly as we were hoping. It’ll be about six to eight weeks before they’ll be producing harvestable antibodies. Perhaps not as potent as Nana and Jamie but the numbers game is a big step up. Three hundred donors instead of just two.”
“And how many recipients per donor?”
“Can’t say with certainty. Definitely five or possibly as high as fifteen thousand.”
“Can’t wait!” Doctor Williams sighed as she did the maths.
“So you’re still basically ‘firefighting’ with Jamie and my donations.” I observed.
“Yeah, and it’s minefield. When some poor devil is infected, how do you choose who to inoculate and who to let die?”
“Rather you than me,” I replied.
“It’s neither you nor me,” Doctor Williams revealed. “The vaccines are distributed on a strict ration basis to each area health authority. The poor buggers in each authority have to decide and the protocols that you and Jamie set down are adhered to as best we can.”
“I’ll bet the bloody prime ministers been jabbed.”
“Not unless he’s been infected, he hasn’t; and even then –“
“Glad to hear it.” I finished.
“Anyway, I’m for bed. I’ll sleep in the visitor’s cot beside Jamie’s bed.”
“That reminds me,” Doctor Williams replied, “she’ll be out of ICU tomorrow. Her blood count is almost up to normal.”
“But not enough to return to donating.” I observed.
“Not yet. The bone marrow still needs to complete repairs. Well, good night Nana.”
“See you in the morning.” I yawned.
ooo000ooo
When I crept into the visitor cot beside Jamie’s ICU bed, she was fast asleep.
‘Best thing for her,’ I concluded as I lay abed and quickly fell asleep myself.
I think I woke up in in the morning in the same position as I fell asleep and that said something of how tired I must have been. Jamie was sitting up eating when I came to.
“You slept well.” She observed as I uncurled reluctantly.
“Has anybody been in?” I asked.
“Your morning coffee’s on the table and the nurse says that those Swedish doctors want to speak to me.”
“D’ you want me with you?”
“I dunno.’ It might be best. I suppose there’ll be lots to talk about.”
“You’ll have to talk with your sister as well and go through it together with the doctors..”
“Yeah, there’s a lot goin’ on.”
We sat silently while I sipped my cold coffee and Jamie combed her long hair. Then a few minutes later there was a noise in the corridor and Doctor Williams arrived with Professor Servensen and some other Swedish doctors in tow, I motioned to leave but they suggested that I stay so I sat on the edge of my cot which formed the edge of the circle.
There was only a brief discussion where they agreed to contact Jamie’s sister and organise a family visit so Jamie’s nephew and nieces could collect their vaccines as well.
Three days later Jamie’s sister, and relatives arrived and half of the south wing was taken over. The brother-in-law stayed briefly then returned to the farm having agreed to stay only for the operation and immediate recovery day because it was harvest time and he could not afford to leave the farm during a time of serious labour shortage.
A week later, after all the tests and preparations had been completed and the Swedish medical team were recovered from their infections. Jamie’s brother-in-law returned for the day and the operation was performed.
I was privileged to be allowed to watch the operation on the monitors but after a few minutes I had to give up. Watching my only true friend being slit open from pelvis to pelvis and down to her pubis was too much for me to handle. Instead I joined the children and entertained them as best I could. Eventually in the evening, we were allowed in briefly to visit the siblings but they were still asleep. The doctors reassured us.
“They’ve both been conscious but they’re sleeping again now. You can see them again in the morning.”
That night I could not sleep in the visitors cot. The IC nurse was supervising both Jamie and her sister.
Dawn found both me and the brother-in-law pacing nervously outside the ICU.
“This as bad as the maternity ward,” he declared.
I had no experiences of maternity so I just nodded mutely as the nurse invited us in.
“They’re still sleeping and that’s a good thing,” she advised as we stepped up to our respective beds.
It may have been a good thing reparatively for the girls but it did nothing for my peace of mind. Just watching them lying there barely seeming to breath and just a few tell-tale electronic beeps and wavy lines, giving any signs of life.
“They’ve both been sedated for twelve hours so they’ll be waking up about tennish.” Professor Severson advised, so we went for breakfast.
Over breakfast we chatted at length with the medical team about Jamie’s prospects of motherhood. The odds were reasonable so both I and Jamie’s brother-in-law went to our fall-back position and entertained the children. They naturally wanted to know what was happening so I left it to their father to do the explanations.
Naturally, the children were more interested in the prospect of having cousins would actually be their half brothers or sisters.
Fortunately, the children lived on a farm so most of the biology was known to them; though they were curious to find out if ‘Auntie Jamie’ would actually be able to give birth. The oldest daughter who at twelve, had some knowledge about birthing, was very curious and actually wondered if Jamie would actually be able to ‘push the baby out.’
“I know she’ll have the bits to make and grow the baby Nana, but will she be able bear down.”
“You’ll have to ask the professor Servensen when he comes back,” her father replied.
Then the oldest daughter amused us all again.
“I can always help. I’ve got small hands and I’ve pulled lots of lambs that were stuck.”
“Thank you darling,” her father stifled a chuckle as he replied, “I sure there’ll be nurses with small hands, on hand to assist if need be.”
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 17
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Chapter 17
Jami’s brother-in-law and I were still stifling a few chuckles as we accompanied Professor Servensen and Dr Williams to the ICU unit.
“Small hands indeed!” He remarked. “It speaks volumes as to how ‘down to earth’ my oldest is. She’ll be qualified as a vet before she leaves high school at the rate she’s doing ovine midwifery!”
“But you’re proud of her.” I replied.
“You bet!” He responded as we entered the ICU.
Instinctively, I stepped up to Jamie’s bed while he went to his wife. Both girls were awake lying prone with their heads propped up slightly on pillows; and both looked pale. Jamie smiled wanly and just whispered “Hi babes.” While her sister responded similarly in the other bed.
“Are you sore darling?” The brother-in-law asked his wife.
“Of course I’m bloody sore!” She croaked. “You won’t be going near me for a bloody year!”
Jaime nearly laughed then she winced painfully as the convulsion wrenched her innards.
“Ouch! Stop making me laugh,” she gasped as she pressed her hands against her stomach.
With the ‘no laughing’ protocols firmly set, the mood quickly stabilised to one of just being there to offer company and chat as and when the girls were up for it. The following morning the children were allowed to see their mother and aunt.
Not being allowed to clamber all over their mother as was the norm of a non-school day; quickly brought home the seriousness of the operation to them and they soon became more solicitous than curious. As a special treat, the oldest daughter was allowed to see a photograph of her mummy’s tummy before the wounds were bandaged. Naturally, it only showed the scar from hip to hip and a hint of the tee scar leading to the more intimate part but it gave the girl enough authority to convey to her siblings just how poorly their mummy was.
“Has Auntie Jamie got the same?” She asked, and her mother nodded affirmation.
This evoked another round of sympathetic curiosity followed by a string of perfectly anatomical questions that amused the surgeon as the twelve-year-old daughter evinced all the medical and clinical separation of a third-year med student.
As they shared the requisite drinks and biscuits (cookies) with Professor Severson the old surgeon asked her.
“So young lady. Is it to be medical or veterinary for you.”
“I haven’t decided yet.” She declared with a confidence that only a twelve-year-old could display.
We could not suppress our chuckles as we left Jamie and her sister for lunch. It simply was not fair to indulge our food in front of the two girls still on ‘no solids by mouth’ for a few more days.
ooo000ooo
Having contented himself that his wife was well on the way to recovery, Jamie’s brother-in-law took their four children home to the farm while I attended to Jamie and her sister’s emotional needs at the ICU. It just involved being around when they needed encouragement and supplying stuff to lighten the load for the nurses.
Eventually Jamie’s sister was deemed fit to go home so I provided a hired antigrav domestic craft to take her back to her mountain farm myself. Late one dark moonless night I deposited her quietly with her family and there were no neighbours to witness that she had ‘recovered’ from the ‘Verna-spiro’ bug. It was a great comfort to me however to see the direct consequences of what my blood could do for a decent family that would otherwise have been wiped out by ‘Verna.’
I stayed the night with the family and the following morning the oldest daughter showed me around the farm. They ran a large successful sheep flock and a collection of other beasts that kept the family in assorted meats while a few fertile, lower, pastures supplied grains and vegetables enough for their own subsistence needs, and winter fodder for their stock. On returning to the farmhouse I expressed my envy.
“You’re lucky to own such a delightful setting,” I declared slightly enviously.
“You wouldn’t say that in the winter Bev. It’s cold, wet and windy but the stock still have to tended.
“Well, I’m sure Jamie will love to bring any children up here for visits if everything goes successfully. You’ve made her a very happy girl.”
“She’s saved our lives Beverly. We’re the ones to be grateful.” Their father intoned sincerely. “She can recover here and convalesce until she’s full and ready to try for a child.”
“She’ll be recovering in the clinic,” I explained. “The post-natal care will be a bit complex at first, but later, I’m sure she’ll want to stay here to rear her children.”
On this note, I returned to the clinic to plan for Jamie’s hoped-for pregnancy.
Doctor Williams and Professor Servensen had prepared a plan and after Jamie had gone through two menstrual cycles they decided it was probably okay to try an impregnation. I had to contact the sperm bank where I had deposited my sperm years ago before my transition and soon a frozen canister was delivered in a special transport equipped to maintain the super cold liquid nitrogen temperatures.
It shouted volumes to Professor Severson’s team that Jamie’s pregnancy was a success and she delivered by normal parturition though the twin babies were slightly smaller than usual. The professor explained that having slightly underweight babies had made the delivery easier for Jamie who, despite having somewhat female hips, did not have the perfect generous proportions for an easy passage.
“We wanted to avoid a caesarean considering the amount of surgery and scar tissue Jamie’s already had,” he explained as I hugged a tearfully happy Jamie and the nurses attended to the new-borns.
After her successful delivery Jamie stayed at the clinic for three months. Professor Servensen returned to Sweden while two of his specialist post-natal care team stayed behind to monitor progress. I returned to the farm where Jamie’s brother-in-law had built an extension to their farmhouse so Jamie could enjoy her motherhood until she was ready to resume her work with me.
Once Jamie was happily ensconced with her sister’s family I resumed my space foraging ways but now I had the nearest thing to a home to return to when my voyages were over.
ooo000ooo
For three months I kept my voyages to simply the moon and Mars. I did not do much prospecting because my earlier finds and ensuing mining operations had now given Jamie and me a considerable income. To tell the truth, I was simply indulging my wanderlust nature whilst waiting for developments concerning the Verna-Spiro pandemic on Earth. I kept in touch with developments while savouring the novelty of having ‘somebody to come home to,’ each time I returned to Earth.
This lifestyle had also brought an added interest to the children on the farm and they were always pestering their auntie Jamie as to when ‘Nana-Bev’ was coming home. My own infants of course, were still blissfully unaware of their father except to perhaps gurgle or dribble over her when she picked them up during her home visits.
My old friend Dennis remarked about my softening and less abrasive nature when I returned after one brief voyage to the moon.
“Fatherhood seems to suit you Bev.” He observed as I was happily anticipating my return to the homestead while quietly humming to myself and completing my voyage log.
“Wha-? Oh fatherhood!. Well, I can’t say I’m dissatisfied Den. What brought this on?”
“I’m looking at your voyage plan for Mars next trip. Who’s Shirley?”
“Jamie’s niece. She’s been pestering me for a trip so I’m taking her for her thirteenth birthday.”
“What, just the two of you?”
“Probably. Though if Jamie’s sister looks after ours, Jamie might come with us.”
“As a chaperone?” Dennis inquired.
I stopped short. I hadn’t considered the possible sexual abuse angle. I had lived as a celibate female for so long that sex was a foreign country to me.
“Don’t be daft,” I scorned. “I’m ‘post op’.”
“Well, just be careful, Shirley’s under sixteen.”
Dennis’s remark put a damper on my mood and I was forced to reconsider my promise to Shirley. Fortunately, her mother promised to look after Jamie and my twins so Jamie was able to accompany us on the next voyage.
After that, I invited no more kids on trips.
About three months after that, I learned that my country and virtually the whole planet had gone into total shutdown because some countries in Africa had not been following the rules. The virus had broken out in one of their big cities and they had not locked down. Now it was spreading like wild-fire and the pandemic was now a panic-demic. My and Jamie’s blood products had become priceless.
There was virtually a bounty on Jamie and my heads and regretfully we had to take shelter in the research clinic while an armed military guard was placed around the building. Once again, the clinic felt obliged to inoculate the guards with our blood plasma to ‘buy’ their loyalty.
By this necessary process of protecting the clinic’s work, there eventually evolved, an island of immunity around the complex and with that, an outer ring of resentment.
We all sensed the mood and feared it so we were utterly relieved when Doctor Williams turned up one afternoon with her face wreathed in smiles. Her previous expression had been one of determined resolve so we more or less guessed what her news was.
“By that look on your face, I’m thinking you’ve made some sort of breakthrough with the vaccine.”
She shrugged her shoulders slightly and ‘swanned’ her neck to the side as though to convey hope tempered by uncertainty.
“There’s been a breakthrough,” she confirmed; - “not the best news I’d expected but a step forward – of sorts.”
“Go-oo on,” I encouraged as Jamie leaned in closer.
“We-ell,” she sighed slowly; “I don’t think you’re going to like this much.”
I frowned irritably.
“Get on with it doctor. This whole business is beginning to wear us down.”
“Well the upshot is that from the provisional tests we have run; the vaccine works but it’s effects are attenuated by testosterone.”
There was a deafening silence as my mind raced through a thousand scenarios while Jamie, ever the more pragmatic girl since becoming a mother, asked.
“Attenuated by how much?”
“Yes. What’s the bottom line?” I asked. “How much?”
“Uuhm, women are pretty safe. The vaccine gives about eighty percent of the female population immunity.”
“And the other twenty?” I pressed.
“Some don’t develop immunity; some develop side effects. The usual unknowns except that there are more unknowns.”
“Twenty percent! That’s a pretty high risk-ratio.”
“Yes. It is,” she admitted, “but given that death is more or less certain if you’re infected and not vaccinated, our researches indicate that women are more than prepared to take the vaccine.”
“What about the risk of death from the vaccine?” Jamie pressed.
“About one in a thousand for women, mostly older women.”
“That’s quite high isn’t it?”
‘Jamie had been reading up on epidemiology.’
“Yes. In normal circumstances the vaccine would not be licensed but these are dangerous times. There’s already talk of the virus reaching North Africa and that’s despite a ruthlessly tight ‘lock-down’.”
“So what about men?” I pressed, unable to ignore the elephant in the room.
“Men will still have to isolate until we find a suitable fix.”
“That’s not going to work.” I stated flatly. “North Africa is almost wholly islamic. The men go out, the women stay home.”
“That’s not my concern!” Doctor Williams riposted bluntly. “I do medicine and immunology not politics and religions.”
“So we might as well continue with the lockdown.” Jamie observed.
“We can’t continue with a hundred percent lockdown. The economy is collapsing as we speak. I’m recommending to the government that they licence the vaccine for women and children. It’s no good wasting it on men if it’s ineffective.”
“Good luck with that one.” I replied then asked. “You say children; does that include boys?”
“Prepubescent boys, yes. The vaccine works on boys if they’ve not reached puberty and testosterone levels are at juvenile or infantile levels.”
“Oh. You didn’t tell me that.”
“So there’s hopes for humanity then.” Jamie chuckled.
“I don’t know why your laughing. If we’re going to protect the human gene pool, our blood is going to have to be spread thin all over the planet to reduce future inbreeding.”
“I see fun and games ahead!” Jamie persisted.
“I suggest you two take a long sabbatical in Space,” Doctor Williams cautioned us before adding. “Provided the whole world doesn’t know you two are ‘the blood donors;’ you’ve got a chance to hide away in space until things calm down here on Earth.”
“What about donating blood?” I asked.
“Come back every eight weeks, or we’ll meet with you in space.”
For want of a better solution we left it at that.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 18.
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Within a month, the news concerning the vaccine became public. Inevitably the fake-news and conspiracy theorists immediately tried to claim that the whole vaccine story was a misanthropic plot to reduce the male population and in several countries, (mostly monotheist cultures) demands were made to give men the vaccine anyway.
In these countries the conspiracies and fake-news situations were rapidly exposed as lock-down rules were relaxed in those countries and very quickly, the male population began to die off while the vaccinated females and young boys survived.
By the time, these misogynist societies had been brutally dragged to their senses and forced to accept the truth, the bulk of their adult male populations were dead.
As to those volunteers who had received the radiation doses from the asteroid, only about thirty percent had acquired the transferable immunity and most of these had been women.
The testosterone effect had prevented the exposed male volunteers from acquiring immunity but this had not manifested itself until the exposure experiments had been completed. This meant that only a half of all the volunteers whether from my country or the UN group were able to supply blood inoculations. As to the ones who had been kidnapped by the islamist terror group in Africa, the news about the testosterone conundrum had devastated the islamist endeavours to wrest control of the programme
That was one small benefit to the kidnap victims because as the islamists fell ill, they died and left the kidnap victims to literally walk out of the prison camp in the Congolese jungle. Of those that escaped, the females were now immune and able to inoculate infected people while as much as possible the authorities in my country took steps to use Jamie and my bloods to inoculate the males who had volunteered.
These men at least had ‘done their bit’ in trying to become donors. On the other hand however, they were at least able to return to their various countries and help out with vaccinating women and pre-pubescent boys.
The wisdom of pursuing the lockdown principles was now becoming abundantly clear and intelligent men were beginning to see sense.
Thus situation was now made clear.
The vaccine was available to all but only effective for females and prepubescent males.
The blood plasma was only available from Jamie and I plus about four hundred women who had successfully assimilated the radiation effects of the meteorite before it plunged into Jupiter.
This equation thus worked out that about six hundred thousand inoculations were available every eight weeks and those would have to be distributed equitably around the planet.
On learning of these statistics from Doctor Williams and the government vaccination team I snorted with derision
“Are you seriously expecting those third world and corrupted governments to distribute the inoculations on a fair or equitable basis?”
“Frankly, Bev, no. But once those volunteers return to their countries to commence the blood plasma donations, it’s out of our hands.”
“Well, just make sure that in our country, the recipients are selected on a meritorious scale based on need and usefulness. Make sure it does not go to the well-connected or wealthy.”
“D’you think that’ll work?” Dr Williams raised a cynical eyebrow.
“How many inoculations will our volunteers produce?” I asked bluntly
“Based on the number of ours who survived the kidnapping attacks, about two hundred thousand inoculations every eight weeks. All of them from women.”
“So what criteria are they basing inoculation priority then?” I asked bluntly.”
I did a rough estimate based upon our current population figures and calculated approximately 33 years before the whole male population would be immunised. The stark figures told no lies. If the male population wanted to survive the pandemic in just our country alone, it meant lock down for 33 years if we were to guarantee an acceptable death rate.
Doctor Williams swallowed nervously when I asked her bluntly and she finally admitted.
“We haven’t decided yet. The cabinet and the National Health authority are still discussing it.”
“Well you’d better decide soon. The first batch of donations is due to be donated next week. The sooner we get some men to assist the women with the economy, the better for everybody. Might I suggest a lot of refuse collectors to make a start on the backlogs of garbage. Public health and all that!”
Doctor Williams wagged her head with no little irony.
“Ever the practical one you; aren’t you.”
“Listen we’ve been inoculating doctors and nurses for the past eight months. Time we looked at other aspects of public health. Most experienced sewerage workers are men. Once we’ve got a grip on public health, the next priority will be transport. Internal transport that is; no passenger traffic except from safe space colonies.
However, cargo ship crews will have to be inoculated; food has to be imported. We import grain and pay for it partly with some of our rations of inoculations.”
“So health becomes a currency!” I frowned.
“Outside our borders I’m afraid so.” Doctor Williams continued. “Can you see any other way of persuading countries to sell us grain? We’ve developed the first effective male inoculation and we can afford to share some of our share, provided our trading partners play fair with us and continue with lock downs.”
“Which country has shown themselves to be the most reliable suppliers?”
“So far Australia. They are enforcing the lockdown and they are an island so they can secure their borders and keep the virus out. Their lockdown process has been draconian but it’s worked. Just like ours, so far.”
“Yeah, we’ve been lucky, the Europeans have been so terrified of the virus jumping across from Africa that they have brutally enforced their cordon sanitaire. Ipso facto, no migrants have made it through Europe and thus none have crossed the channel. Our navy has been mostly employed helping the French, Spanish Italians and Greeks enforce their boundaries in the Med.”
“Are the Aussies prepared to trade?”
“Definitely. We sent a thousand inoculations to them only yesterday. They will be using them to protect male staff working with our staff to get the trade moving. They’ve already earmarked a million tons of grain for us.”
“We mustn’t be seen to be exploiting them.”
“Nor they us. Every spaceship that loads grain deposits water over their corn fields first before loading. They’re still suffering from global warming. They’re even importing water from the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.”
“Yes, I’ve seen them. Bloody great leviathans with mile wide sprinkler arms.”
“What other countries can we work with d’ you think?” Dr Williams asked.
“Argentina might come on board; South America doesn’t have so many problems with containing the virus and lockdowns.”
“What about Canada?”
“They’re game but they cannot keep their borders secure. The US health care system is too commercially orientated and only the rich men get inoculated. Consequently, lots of Americans keep turning up in Canada hoping to share in Canada’s more equitable system.” Thanks to their commercialised medicine, the yanks have fucked up.
“Yes,” Dr Williams agreed, “until our government sees a more equitable, meritorious system of inoculations in the US, they’re loath to give them any surplus male inoculations except for a politically expedient quantity. Besides, we don’t produce that many surplus male inoculations anyway. It’s a drop in the ocean compared with the US population numbers. It’s only the fact that we’ve supplied tens of millions of the female vaccines to supplement their efforts, that they’ve remained friends. Even so, some of their right-wing politicians are accusing us of weaponising our medicine.”
“Those idiots can fuck off. Most of them see medicine as nothing more than a way to screw people who are desperate to be cured. In addition to that, some stupid Americans refused to abide by lockdown until they were forced at gunpoint.”
“Well, there’s no accounting for stupid. For now we’ve got a mutually beneficial system with Oz and Argentina so the government is taking those arrangements forward.”
“Suits me. Everybody I care for is immune.”
“I never thought of you as selfish Bev,” Dr Williams berated me.
“It’s not that.” I protested.” Beyond supplying blood, everything else is out of my hands now. It’s pointless me getting involved now. I’ll return to my sheep.”
“True,” she agreed, “and peace of mind.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever find that.” I reflected.
ooo000ooo
Late that night, taking advantage of a storm-swept night, I arrived at the farm undetected. It still took me some time to get used to seeing Jamie nursing babies at her breast instead of simply bouncing up to meet me all bright-eyed and bushy tailed.
It further exercised my life view of total freedom when meeting the rest of Jamie’s now extended family and having to account in some small part for my comings and goings.
“How long will you be gone?” Jamie’s sister asked as I revealed my plan to go the outer planets of Uranus and Neptune.
“Can’t say,” I replied. “There’s no great urgency for my blood now the volunteers are donating. My single donation is a drop in the ocean of need. I’ll be gone for a few months I think. I’m curious to see what the outer planet’s moons are like.”
“So it’s just curiosity that drives you?” She charged, somewhat accusatively I thought.
“It’s curiosity that’s driven my whole life. Interplanetary geology and mineral exploitation; there’s no other interests to drive me.”
“What about your children, what about your partner Jamie?”
“Jamie’s my business partner and 1st mate. We are not wedded or married. Besides, she’s got support here.”
“What about emotional support?”
“She’s got Jennifer, who she sleeps with, and her other social friends Charlotte and Lucy. Her younger friends ”
“But your children, they need a father.”
“If Jamie thinks I’m neglecting them, I’m sure she’ll tell me. I’ve noticed that her Cis-girl friends Rose and Violet have stopped visiting since Jamie became a mother.”
“I think they’re a bit jealous, because they haven’t found partners who can get them pregnant. This vaccine’s a bugger.”
“Well; it’s not my problem, I’m doing my bit. I’m heading out to Dennis’s yard early tomorrow so I’m going to bed.”
“Will we see you before you go?”
“Whoever’s milking the cows at four will see me, I suppose the rest of the farm will be sleeping. Good night.”
I intentionally shut down the conversation because I could sense that Jamie’s sister had some sort of agenda but I really needed to sleep.
ooo000ooo
The following morning as the cows were being brought in to milk I encountered Jamie’s brother-in-law in the farmyard. I had hoped to be away before he returned from the pasture with the cattle but I had overslept. It would have been discourteous to avoid him so I exchanged the briefest of conversations and simply advised him I was bound for the outer gas planets of Neptune and Uranus. I anticipated a voyage of some six months.
“You’ll miss the children growing up Bev.”
“I’m hoping this will be the last voyage I do alone. I’ll have enough money to build a bigger, faster ship. Digger was always a little cramped when Jamie and I flew her and if she wants her children to come with us when they’re older then we’ll need a bigger ship.”
“Do you intend prospecting all your life?”
“Not of necessity. I’m set for life financially. I’m just a vagabond at heart.”
“And what does Jamie think?”
“As I said, we are not married and not joined at the hip. She has her own sleeping partner Jenifer and your family provide for the family values stuff.”
“Aren’t you afraid of being squeezed out of the family home?”
“My old ship Digger has been my home for the past twenty years, long before I met Jamie. I provide for the kid’s keep and they’ll know they’ve got a father. My new ship will enable them to travel with me if they want to.”
“So you’ll be a sort of space gypsy.”
“Just about.”
“Don’t you ever get lonely?”
“Apart from when Jamie joined me, I’ve been a loner since I broke with the family over my transgenderism.”
“And when was that?”
“I was sixteen.”
“You’re a strange one Bev. Won’t you want to retire one day?”
I shrugged my shoulders as my lev started ascending.
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. See you in six months or so.”
He gave me a brief wave and then I was headed for Denis’s freight yard
Space was beckoning and I had the wanderlust again.
~ooo000ooo~
Antibodies 19
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Chapter 19.
My first trip to the moons of Uranus and Neptune were to be the last I would take with my old ship Digger. I watched the familiar image of Mother Earth receding rapidly on my pursuit screen, then after a brief appearance of the moon the combined images started to shrink rapidly as I accelerated to interplanetary speed.
Mars was not visible, being on the other side of the sun and Jupiter only appeared as a bright crescent to sunward ringed by her bracelet of Galilean moons. Next, I turned to watch Saturn expanding in my view and plotted a rendezvous with her mighty moon Titan..
On coming into range of Titan’s gravity, I extended a gravity tether to her gravity field and concentrated the attractive force to sling me outwards to Uranus. Once happy with my trajectory I settled down to the long leg into the remote isolation of Uranus’s orbit.
Over a week since clearing Saturn I finally approached Uranus closely enough to push a gravitational tether through her gaseous surface and ‘grab’ some solid rock or ice. This reduced my speed enough to venture a lighter tether towards the moon Titania and eventually land on the moons rock and ice surface. My prospecting proved unrewarding. The ‘Ice’ proved to be mostly CO2 and Oxygen of which there were abundant quantities on Saturn and Jupiter’s moons while the ‘rock’ proved to be
mostly fragmented lumps of assorted silicas and none metallic compounds with no known commercial exploitation.
In truth I had not expected some spectacular discovery so I left Titania as I’d found her, chaste and unsullied. Uranus had lots of other moons and smaller satellites that held greater promise.
I was one of the very few who had inherited ‘grandfather’ rights to unrestricted celestial and stellar exploration and exploitation through my descent from my great-grandfather Charlie Sage. There were lots of other corporate organisations active in our solar system but they were all bound by interplanetary conventions and licensing controls.
When my great grandfather had invented his gravity engines his patents had devolved to his immediate descendants through his last will and testament. I was one of the few in the family line to have thus inherited those rights and the subsequent advantages.
Often I reflected silently upon those inherited rights when I made a lucky strike on some remote body far out in space. This voyage to Uranus and Neptune was to be one of those instances.
Eventually, I discovered a valuable lump of metallic mineral orbiting Neptune that proved manageable enough to haul back to the Earth’s moon where it could be cut up for delivery to Earth. The ‘rock’ was actually a veritable mountain of palladium, rhodium, and titanium in commercially pure condition.
Having anchored the huge rock to Digger, I then had to plot a viable course back to Earth where it would have to be cut up and processed by the Solar Furnace corporation whose processing plant was orbiting the moon. It was going to be a long, tedious journey but fortunately, once I had started it on its journey out of its Neptunian orbit and plunging sunwards I could declare it to the Solar Metals Exchange, then leave it un-attended but marked and tagged until it reached the earth.
There I could use one of the large commercial gravity tethers to ‘lasso’ the veritable mountain of metal and then carefully install my ‘quarry’ in a licensed orbit around the moon where metal companies and traders could purchase pure ingots of assorted metals produced by the ‘Solar Furnace corporation’ in which I had a modest shareholding.
It would be several years before my ‘asteroid’ reached Earth, so once I’d set it on its path, I raced ahead to declare my find and trade futures. The interplanetary metals council had long ago reached a universal convention concerning metal quarrying. All finds had to be registered so that any large discoveries did not unduly destabilise the market in that particular commodity.
This agreement benefited everybody involved in metal prospecting, mining, trading and using. In space, ‘klondyking’ was a thing of the past. Nevertheless, there was lots of money to be made if a prospector was lucky enough to find a valuable ‘rock.’
ooo000ooo
After returning to Earth and registering my find there was little I could do with it until the asteroid appeared in the Lunar sky and the requisite authorities had captured it and tethered it in Lunar orbit. For the next few years all I could do was occasionally check on my property and ensure that it was still on course to rendezvous with Earth.
I used that time to indulge in several short hops to the Lunar Base and Mars whilst sharing the luxury of growing with my children; and of course, to resume donating blood for the inoculation programme.
By now the pressure on Jamie and me had eased off considerably. A substantial proportion of the male population had either taken steps to store their sperm then stop their bodies from producing testosterone. This was being done by several different methods like the obvious processes of orchidectomies after sperm donation and storage. However the ever-ingenious medical profession had developed other processes like freezing testicles for reattachment if or when a vaccine was developed for men.
All in all, the remainder of the male population had resolved themselves to making sacrifices if they wanted to remain alive and yet father children. It was mainly the rational and balanced individuals who thus survived the onslaught of the Verona virus which meant there were infinitely less fanatics or bigots looking to somehow attack or kidnap or punish Jamie and me. The secret of our identity as the initial donors of the effective inoculations eventually leaked out but the dangers to our persons was commensurately reduced.
Besides, there were several hundred other donors worldwide who were equally vulnerable to kidnap but by and large; they were now considered saviours not witches.
With our identities now becoming public it was inevitable that any known donor would be approached with offers of money to share some blood as private clinics sprang up worldwide to offer inoculations from blood that some donors sold.
In many instances, rich relatives were involved and all over the world, donor girls kept receiving lucrative offers from rich male relatives hoping to jump any queues. Some succumbed to the family pressures, some did not. I did not; nor did Jamie. Too much pain of rejection I suppose.
ooo000ooo
The incident occurred when I returned to Dennis’s Cargo terminal after my second short hop to Mars. By now I had upgraded my beloved ‘Digger’ for a newer and larger ship whilst I had stored digger in Dennis’s yard until Jamie might decide to use her for her own purposes;- social, domestic, pleasure or business.
Jamie’s oldest niece Shirley, (her sisters daughter) was enjoying her easter break from school and she had now travelled a couple of times with me as a passenger to Mars and the moon. We had just docked and the young girl was lifting her rucksack out of my new, enlarged ship while I crossed over to Dennis’s office. On greeting me Dennis extended his hand in the usual greeting then handed me an envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Dunno. Some elderly lady turned up one day claiming to be your mother and left this with my secretary.”
“My mother!?”
“That’s what she said.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth. You were visiting Mars and would be away for a few weeks.”
I shrugged and took the cup of tea that Dennis’s secretary proffered, then opened the letter.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mynnydd Glas Farm,
Treddu,
Cymru
Dear Ms Taff,
I write firstly to tell you that your father has passed away.
That has left me with your two younger sisters to run the farm because your brother Dafydd, had declared no interest in the family home but instead he has taken his inherited share of the family business and now works as a shareholding director in the space shipbuilding business so successfully started by your illustrious great-grandfather Charlie.
Through his many contacts in the business, we have come to learn that you also have become involved in space and indeed, he tells me that you are running a successful transport and mining business. If this is true I congratulate you.
Your sisters and I were never entirely happy with the way your father treated you and your departure at such an early age never sat well between us and your father. The rift never properly healed; indeed it grew wider and more fractious with time.
Your brother has revealed to me several things since he has had to virtually live on Mars to avoid infection. As he told me ruefully, it was isolation or castration. He chose isolation but he has no children and like most other men, he has frozen his sperm.
Last month, your brother risked a very rare visit to Earth and he returned to our family home with some disturbing news.
He told me that it is rumoured that a certain miss Beverly Taff is a transgendered person who used to be Berwyn Sage and that Miss Taff was revealed to actually be his full blood brother. He learned of this through the anonymous blood donations supplied to the Oxford University Laboratories though the informant remains anonymous for obvious reasons.
On receiving this news, your sisters and I have moved Heaven and Earth to confirm that Beverly Taff was indeed Berwyn Sage and we have recently achieved this.
Beverly Taff, you are definitely the son who left our family because of your father’s cruelty and we, the females of the family, definitely would like you back. Furthermore, your brother has declared that he is keen to meet you and not just in hope of somehow persuading you to donate some of your blood to him. He sincerely wants to reconnect and reaffirm the family line.
Apparently, he knows that your paths have crossed several times on Mars during various business activities but you preferred to remain unidentified as Berwyn Sage. Instead, living in your female persona as Beverly Taff. He only learned this through the anonymous information concerning the blood donations when last he briefly returned to Earth.
Having now discovered that my long-lost child Berwyn is not dead but actually thrives as you, Beverly Taff, I am beseeching you to reconnect with your family.
Yours sincerely,
Mam
Xx.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I folded the letter and returned it to its envelope as Dennis searched my face for clues.
“I’m guessing it’s personal Bev, so I’ll not ask unless you want to tell.”
I smiled at him. Dennis could be so disingenuous at times so I gave him the bare bones.
“Yes. It’s from my mother, apparently my father’s died and she’s seeking some sort of reconciliation.”
“And?”
“Leave it there for now, Jamie needs to see the letter, it involves our children as well.”
“Will you be seeing your mother.” Dennis asked then explained. “I’m asking because there’s a couple of valuable lifts to Mars. The colony’s embarked upon a large expansion. I suspect they’re thinking ‘Ark’.”
I grinned at Dennis.
“You make it sound so Biblical.”
“Well, they’re lucrative contracts Bev, and your new ship ‘Miner’ is a shoe-in for some of the bigger components.”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow Dennis. My passenger and I need to get home and discuss things with Jamie and her family.
Even as I stepped to leave, Shirley appeared at the door to the office trying not to look impatient. I grinned at her.
“Don’t panic kid, were off home now.”
“When’s the next trip Auntie Bev, and will I have enough time left this holiday?”
“Can’t say Shirley, there’s some family stuff that’s come up.”
Naturally, the girl tried to pump me for information for she felt that all aspects of my family were relatable to hers. Eventually, I had to inform her gently that my side was essentially a closed book to everybody except Jamia and me. She accepted my reticence with good grace and we chatted about lighter subjects including her hopes to return to Mars before the school holidays ended.
When we landed at the farm, she stepped out too quickly in her eagerness to see her family and she slipped in the mud.
“Now that’s what I call a ‘return to Earth’,” I chuckled.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 20
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Chapter 20.
Shirley simply laughed it off as she sprang to her feet.
“It’s only a bit of mud Auntie Bev, I’ve lived on this farm all my life so it’s not going to harm me.”
I was relieved that she didn’t make a big fuss about ruining her clothes but instead, declared that ‘they were only working clothes anyway, and it’ d wash off.’
“Her mother had seen us landing from her kitchen window so she and Jamie welcomed us at the back door as the family emerged from various places around the farm to join in the welcome. Very quickly, we were gathered around the big kitchen table as Shirley removed her outer clothes then hurried to her toom to clean up.
While she was getting clean her mother asked about her.
“Did my daughter behave herself?”
“Yes, perfectly.” I replied.
“What! No arguments, no sulking, no tantrums?”
“None at all.” I assured her.
“There, I told you she’d be okay.” Jamie interjected. “Space is a pretty effective pedagogue.”
“And an unforgiving one.” I added. “She made a couple of ‘First tripper’s’ blunders that gave her a fright and she quickly realised there was little room for mistakes. Discovering that you can die out there from the slightest error or blunder soon sobered her up. I think you’ll find you’ve got a much more responsible daughter now. She won’t be so cocky in future.”
“Was Jamie ever cocky?” Her sister asked.
I grinned as Jamie glared with sibling annoyance at her sister.
“Not with me, but you have to remember, she was already a working girl when we met.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Jamie concurred. “Lot’s to learn though.”
“Well, it is rocket science after all,” I grinned as I welcomed a mug of tea and a large, buttered scone.
We chatted at length about how the Verna-Spiro virus had affected the neighbourhood then Jamie reminded me about my mother.
“A lady claiming to be your mother has visited the village. She didn’t come to the farm though.”
This reminded me of the letter I was carrying and I passed it to her.
“Oh yes. Here read this and tell me how you feel.”
“When did you get this?” She asked as she read the first few sentences.
“This morning when we landed in Dennis’s freight yard. He handed it to me.”
Jamie read and digested the letter at length while I finished a second mug of tea finally she looked at me.
“D’ you want to reconnect with her?” Jamie asked.
“I dunno,’ she’ll want to see the kids.” I cautioned. ”I doubt that it’s me she wants to see. It was all about family with her, and respectability with my father.”
“Well he’s out of the picture now,” Jamie observed as she tapped the letter. “What do you feel?”
I fell silent. I’d managed without my parents since I was sixteen so did I really want any new complications in my life. Ever since I had managed to get a toehold into space with my acquiring Digger through my family connections and shareholding left to me by my great-grandfather Charlie Sage, I had been forced to plough my own furrow. I had a lot to thank Charlie for and I knew he had been forced to overcome some terrible injustices in his early life.
My mother was Charlie’s granddaughter but she had married a man who had proven to be a transphobic bigot as far as I was concerned. My mother was the only connection I had to the famed Sage family name and even that was via a double-barrelled name, so typical of upper-class snobs who wanted to advertise any family connections.
At the time of my eviction I knew little of such things but it was the ‘Sage’ in my sir-name that had enabled my access to space and I had innocently exploited that privilege.
Now that Sage connection was coming back to haunt me. Did I really want to rake up cold ashes. There was a very slight niggling feeling in my gut.
Charlie Sage was my esteemed great-grandfather and he had never harmed me or caused me harm. Was I wrong to hold the Sage name at fault? I asked myself. Jamie seemed to read my mind.
“According to this letter, it was your father who did you down, not your mum.”
Unsure of what to do I hit the ball into Jamie’s court.
“Do you think our children would want to know about their roots?”
“I’m sure they will!” Jamie replied. “The moment they realise they’re related to the Sage family; they’ll want to know more.”
“Do you want to meet her?” I asked Jamie.
“Not if it vexes you or distresses you.”
“I’m not sure what it does,” I replied, “the more I think about it the less certain I am.”
“Less certain of what?” Shirley demanded to know as she returned from changing her dirty clothes.
“Never you mind. It’s nothing to do with you.” Her mother warned her.
“What! Another family secret. Another skeleton?”
Shirley had unwittingly hit a bullseye with unerring accuracy. Firstly Jamie’s eviction from her family and now she was learning of mine. I tried to deflect her by telling her it wasn't important but she snapped back with venom.
“What? Like learning I had another auntie when I was a teenager; is nothing to do with me! Like learning my other Auntie is a Sage. Then learning both aunties are transgendered. It’s all nothing to do with me.
Am I a part of this family or not?”
I felt an ironic laugh forcing itself through my diaphragm. Shirley could be so perspicacious. Then she administered her coup-de-grace.
“I’m sitting in a room with the mother and father of my biological half-sister and half-brother who are technically also my cousins by law, but it’s not my business!”
“Well you’ve got the biology right.” I was forced to concede with a smile. “I suppose you might as well get the history right.”
“So what is it Auntie Bev? You never kept any secrets from me in space.”
“That was to keep you alive Shirley! Space is about life and death kid; as well you already know. Family stuff is just about life but yes; I think you’ve a right to know.”
Having wrought what she considered a concession out of me, Shirley, settled onto one of the kitchen seats and gazed expectantly. After glancing at Jamie to confirm her agreement, I laid my early history onto my fifteen-year-old niece. Occasionally her jaw sagged, especially about my blagging my way onto a spaceship by exploiting my family connection to Charlie Sage. Finally she was ‘up – to – date’ with my story and after a couple of questions she settled back with satisfaction before exclaiming.
“Jeeze auntie Bev! Are all families like ours?”
I let go a chuckle before replying.
“I dunno’ Shirley How many families do you know at your school?”
“Well lots, but we don’t talk about relatives and stuff.”
“Na-ah; I suppose it’s all boys, music, makeup and sex.”
“Pretty much,” she confessed.
“So nothing changes. Now if you’ve any more questions you’ll have to wait until you can interrogate your great aunt; - my mother. She can give you all the stuff about your great, great grandfather, Charlie Sage.”
“We’ve actually done him in our history of space classes. It’s hard to make sense now.”
“Well, she’s got all the dirt on my great grandfather, she’s even got lots of his private letters. You can guarantee an ‘A’ in history if you choose to study it.”
“Nah, it’s space and spaceships for me. My maths and science grades have virtually guaranteed me a place at Uni.”
We chatted as the family collectively prepared and ate dinner. Then, finally, sleep overtook me and I trudged off to bed. Later I heard Jamie’s partner Jenifer coming home and that was it until morning.
ooo000ooo
I awoke to a typically wet Saturday morning but because I was on a break, I was free to curl up under my duvet while the rest of the household had to rise and go about their daily farming and mothering tasks.
Eventually, about mid-morning ten a.m., somebody mustered the courage to ‘go and wake that lazy bitch upstairs.’
“Are you getting up today Auntie?” Shirley chirped,- far to brightly for my liking.
“Unngh! What time is it?” I demanded grumpily.
“Ten o’clock, you’d better get up.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because the lady claiming to be your mother has phoned to confirm if you live here; - and if you do, can she meet you?”
I lay curled up in silent contemplation under the duvet. ‘Did I want to meet this lady?’
Shirley sensed my indecision and declared.
“Auntie Jamie thinks it might be good for your babies to meet a paternal grandparent.”
This remark conjured up old memories and I reluctantly conceded Shirley’s point. If our meeting didn’t work I could walk away from it anyway. Apart from Jamie and our twins, I had no responsibilities or ties anyway.
“Oh okay then. Where is this woman anyway.”
“She’s staying at a hotel in Sanderton, you know the one in Station road.”
I knew the place quite well, for I passed it whenever we went into the village and I’d stopped in several times for a quiet contemplative drink to savour my anonymity. I concluded that the best way would be to meet her there. I yawned and slowly emerged from under the duvet while Shirley stood watching.
“What ’choo lookin’ at girl?” I asked.
“You’re not in bad shape for an old woman.” She replied;- cheekily I thought.
“Bugger off and make some tea!” I scolded her. “I’ll be down in ten.”
ooo000ooo
Downstairs Jamie met me with one twin at her breast while her sister attended to the other’s nappy. The sister explained.
“Jamie says your mother want’s to meet you for lunch at one in the Sanderton restaurant. Is that okay?”
“S’ a good a time as any,” I yawned again, “is she alone?”
“I didn’t ask, though Jamie thinks your sisters want to meet you as well. She heard them in the background on the phone.”
As I sipped my tea, I contemplated my stratagem.
“Do you want to come Jamie?”
“How d’you want to play it?”
“I think I should enter alone; sort of emphasise the way I was left to fend for myself at sixteen. You can wait with the kids in the lounge.”
“She knows about me though. I spoke to her on the phone.”
“She doesn’t know who you are though, the mother to our kids and stuff.”
“That’s true, she’s no idea about the kids. To her I’m just another woman at this farm. All she knows is that I’m the closest person to you.”
“Well then I’ll go in alone at first, just to make the point and, if she shows sufficient contrition, I’ll call you from the lounge.”
“What about us?” Shirley asked. “Mum and us kids are family too!”
“Small steps slowly.” I cautioned. “There’s a lot of stuff to sort first. Let’s get over this hurdle first. If it works we can all meet tomorrow.”
I went back upstairs and put minimal makeup on. The slightest hint of lipstick and nothing else. I had no desire to try and impress for I felt I had nothing to prove.
As I dressed with scant regard to any sort of impact I might have, I looked in the mirror and realised I had few feelings for the woman I was about to meet. There just seemed to be a flat, immutable lump of ‘nothingness’ lying at the bottom of my stomach. It was only then that I realised that we would have little to talk about that would be of interest to me.
I had no wish to talk of my childhood years and anything of my life that followed after my eviction was entirely known to me already. I could see that the conversation, if any, was going very much a one-way street; - her finding out what had happened to me. I had no wish to know what had happened to them for they had been dead to me since I was sixteen and that was some twenty-five years previously.
By twelve noon; - ‘high noon’, I reflected to myself, the twins, Jamie, and I were ready. We left in two cars so as to arrive unconnected if she happened to see us in the car park. Jamie arrived first some five minutes before me and she settled with the twins in the lounge. I parked away from her car and made my way directly to the restaurant.
I saw my mother and two sisters, long before they saw me, so I had time to compose myself. They had chosen a table by the large inglenook fireplace with a good view of the entrance to the restaurant. Knowing the hotel as I did, I knew that the ladies loo had two entrances; one from the restaurant beside the inglenook fireplace and one from the reception hall.
I chose to enter restaurant via the loo and just appear behind my mothers’ seat from behind the inglenook. Like many hotels and inns in my country, the place had been converted and the inglenook now protruded into the enlarged restaurant as a pseudo-historic feature. The new loos were located behind the large stone fireplace.
Thus when I entered the loo from the reception hall, and emerged from the same loo in the recess beside the inglenook.
My mother was sitting with her back to where I emerged while my sisters were seated to her right and completely invisible to me.
I listened briefly to them discussing my anticipated arrival then I emerged from the recess like ghost behind my mother.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 21
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Chapter 21
After pausing in the recess behind the inglenook fireplace I stepped casually into the restaurant and my mothers’ field of vision. She did not recognise me, nor did my younger sisters so I turned and stared into my mothers’ face. She looked up as uncertainty crossed her features and I chose my moment.
“You don’t recognise me then?”
I saw the dawning light of recognition slowly widen her eyes and lower her jaw as she struggled for words.
“Bernard?” She gasped softly.
“It’s Beverly now; Beverly Taff. What’s more you know it.” I replied while still maintaining a critical distance.
She struggled to get out of her chair while her daughters rushed to help her. I did not step forward or bend to help her for I wanted to physically demonstrate the rift between us. Finally she got to her feet and reached out with both arms but I did not accept her invitation. A single page letter of apology and a hug was not going to repair the years of damage and cruel rejection.
My expressionless mask was no act, I found that I really had no feelings for her or the two younger women supporting her. She quickly recognised my indifference and searched for some way to open a constructive conversation. I saved her the effort by asking.
“Now you’ve found me, what d’ you want to do with me?”
For several seconds she just stared at me, seemingly lost for words, then she collected her thoughts.
“I, - I don’t want to ‘Do’ anything with you. I just want you to reconnect with the family.”
“Why?”
She hesitated and I noted the brief flicker of guilt behind her gaze as she searched for a credible reason. Her hesitancy puzzled me; I thought she’d have her case well prepared and arguments lined up like a lawyer:-
‘Or was she playing the ‘please-forgive-me’ card and pandering to any feminine forgiving nature I might have.’ I wondered.
“You didn’t deserve to be treated like you were by your father.”
“I know that; you’re preaching to the choir.”
“I want to apologise for what he did.”
“Bit late for that now isn’t it. You should have fought to prevent him evicting me when I was just turned sixteen.”
“How could I stop him; he was a bully?”
“There must have been a dozen different ways to stop him. You could have divorced him; after all the wealth in our family was all yours courtesy of your grandfathers trust, my great-grandfathers’ trust.”
“That’s something else we have to sort out.”
“Oh! What’s that?”
“He tried to block your inheritance due to you when you became twenty-one. We couldn’t find you and they lawyers wouldn’t let him.”
“I was disinherited!”
“No you weren’t. Your father could not disinherit you, nor could I, The trust lawyers couldn’t find you. Your inheritance is still in the trust. You changed your name and you changed your gender. We only learned who you were since the Verna Spiro Pandemic and the business with your blood.
Your brother was virtually living on Mars and they kept a supply of your inoculations on Mars base to treat anybody who had inadvertently become infected while on Earth. Your brother thought he might have been exposed so he told the authority on Mars and they ran tests on his blood. He wasn’t infected but the computers at Doctor Williams’s Oxford lab rang alarm bells when they discovered your brothers blood was a genetic match to their main donors’ blood. That is; your blood.
We had long ago assumed that you were dead, an early victim of the Verna Spiro but the way the trust was structured meant the monies and share rights could not be legally disposed of for fifty years. Your great grandfather Charlie was nothing if not cautious.”
“Where’s my brother now?”
“He pretty much lives on Mars, to avoid contact with the virus.”
“So why wasn’t he inoculated.”
“You laid down your terms early on. Only men vital to mankind’s survival were eligible to be inoculated. He was passed forty; not deemed essential and that doctor woman decided not to tell him he was related to one of the two primary donors to protect your identity.
She was also fearful of being accused of nepotism.”
I shrugged. During the onset of the virus and for many years before that,
I had lived the life of a gypsy and family had meant nothing to me. I was still pretty much indifferent to my brother’s plight and my mother stared at me as that realisation slowly dawned on her.
“Don’t you care about your brother?”
“I’ve never thought much about him until now.”
“You do realise he’s a father don’t you. Two children are probably going to lose their father eventually when he finally succumbs to the bug.”
I shrugged again.
“Millions, no billions of kids are losing their dads all over the world. Why should your grandchildren be any different?”
“But they’re your family!” My sisters now weighed in.
I frowned at them.
“You still don’t get it do you. I don’t have any family.”
“Yes you do!” The younger sister insisted. “It’s not our fault you were thrown out. Besides our children have a right to know they’ve got another auntie.”
I was slightly pleased that she had quite unconsciously referred to me as an auntie. This sister at least showed some capacity to accept me as her sister. I began to wonder if it was worth giving them -the family- a second chance.
“And how many children do you have?” I asked her.
“Five, and my oldest son is approaching puberty. He’ll be becoming vulnerable to the virus in a couple of years.”
I paused to reflect then turned to leave via the lavatory door I had just entered by. I had no intention of revealing where I was going.
“I’m going to speak to somebody for advice,” I explained as I tapped my phone as if to indicate I would be making a phone-call from the lavatories.
They paused in their seats as I made it obvious I wanted privacy then I slipped out through the lavatory door. Once out of sight, I stepped across the hotel foyer and slipped into the lounge where Jamie was entertaining our twins.
“Do you want to meet with some of my family?” I asked her bluntly.
“Whatever suits you.” She replied.
“Okay. I’ll call you in a minute.”
Thus emboldened I returned to the restaurant and stood looming over my mother. I wasn’t smiling and she looked distinctly nervous.
“Right mother! This is a one off. I’m prepared to give my brother and my brothers in law an inoculation of my blood but for that I require total secrecy about my connection to your family ; - that is, my family because I don’t want to grow some sort of emotional tail that others can catch me by. You must arrange for you son and sons in law, to meet me anonymously at Potter’s freight depot next Sunday when the place is normally closed. I will rendezvous with you to supply the inoculations. Bring your grandsons as well. It will do them no harm to be inoculated.
I will be there with my team to administer the inoculations. There will be NO publicity.
I had no time for the tears that flowed from all three women but instead declared that I would share a family lunch with them there and then in the restaurant.
“Our children are in school.” They declared; we’ll have to eat this evening.
“I’ve no time for that. I’m a busy woman, wait here please.”
So saying, I stepped across to the lounge and motioned to Jamie as I bent down to pick up one of our twins. By now Shirley and Jennifer had joined Jamie in the lounge so Jennifer picked up the other twin while Shirley wheeled in the empty double buggy. Jamie and I entered together as my mother and sisters stared askance at our appearance.
There puzzled frowns told everything so I went straight to an explanation.
“This is Jamie the mother to our twins, this is Jennifer, Jamie’s bedfellow and partner and this is Shirley my niece by association and biological half-sister to our twins.”
For long seconds, the silence was deafening before my mother finally recovered her composure.
“Your twins?”
“Our twins,” Jamie corrected her. “Bev is the dad and I’m their mum.”
“So how does Jennifer fit into this?”
“She’s my partner. Don’t bother asking.”
“So you’re saying the twins are my grandchildren.”
“Yes.” Jamie confirmed. “Before transitioning, Beverly froze her sperm so they are your biological grandchildren.”
“This is crazy.”
“The world’s a crazy place these days. Get over it.” I advised.
“I think I’d better order that lunch now while I unravel this stuff.” My mother opined.
She motioned to the waitresses who had been hovering in anticipation. And the table settings were quickly reset for our larger grouping.
ooo000ooo
My predictions to Jamie about my mother’s response had been accurate. During the lunch, she spoke but sparingly to me and even then only to determine some aspect of my twins condition or circumstance. Jamie on the other hand, endured a third degree worthy of the old Spanish Inquisition; especially when my mother realised that Jamie was a transgender with a womb and partial ovarian transplant.
My mother demonstrated clear relief when she realised that Jamie could demonstrate the exact maternal genetic history of our children especially when she watched Shirley fussing with the twins. Then she ‘revealed her moral slip’ by asking why Jamie and I had not got ‘married.’
“I Mean. If you went to all that trouble to have children, why didn’t you marry their father and make them legal?”
Jamie gaped slightly as the table fell silent.
“What d’you mean legal? Bev’s listed as their dad on their birth certificates and I’m listed as their mum!
“Yes, but you’re not ma -.”
“Now hold it right there old lady!” Jamie snapped. “I’m not some sort of gold gigger. My partnership with Nana Bev is strictly a business and platonic friendship. There is no romance or sexual connection at all!”
As she spoke, Jamie looked at me to confirm her words and I smiled as I nodded. “Yes, partners in business and now captains of our own ships. Friends? Yes! Very much so, but lovers; - no.”
My mother studied me critically.
“So will the children have a father?”
“Of course they will – when I’m home; and there will be several women in the family who will also share the care. There’s a veritable clan of relatives on our farm; which, by the way, is a protected location.”
As I revealed this I could see Shirley counting in her head then she turned and grinned.
“Eight women altogether, if you count all Jamie’s cousins as adults over fifteen. That is; being legally entitled to baby-sit. There’s also Shirley’s father - Uncle Jack, Jamie’s brother-in-law married to her sister.”
“Will I be able to visit this clan?” My mother pressed.
I paused thoughtfully before explaining.
“Jamie’s clan would have to be consulted plus the vaccine council who run the male inoculation scheme. They’re red hot on protecting us for all the obvious reasons.”
“But we’re family as well,” one of my sisters protested. “Why should Jamie’s family have some sort of preference over ours?”
“History!” I replied bluntly. “They were here for us in the hard times, or at least her sister was. Where were you?”
She had no answer and fell silent.
For several minutes, the table became silent as the food was served. The atmosphere became strained as all the diners were reluctant to raise any other topics that might prove contentious. Eating gave everybody a chance to avoid any other conflict. The mood suited me.
Eventually the meal finished and Jamie prepared to leave with Jennifer, Shirley and the twins. I had other business to attend to before returning that evening to the farm. I had to advise the Vaccine Council of my intentions to donate a small dose of blood for my brother and brothers-in-law. Doctor Williams called me back directly when she received my text.
“You’ve got my permissions Bev; I’ll sort it with the council.”
“Thanks, I need to know by tomorrow.
In the parking bays, as I was kissing Jamie and Jenny bye-bye, my mother and sister approached again.
“Will we be able to visit your twins regularly?” My sister asked.
“Lets not rush things,” I replied, “I hardly know you except to remember that you comprised a family that shunned me. When I meet my brother at Dennis’s freight yard, we’ll discuss more stuff then.”
Antibodies 22
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Dafydd Bev’s older brother.
Digger Beverly’s first ship.
Miner Beverly’s second, larger and newbuild ship.
Jamie and I completed a brief paired voyage to the moon which was the first we had enjoyed since the twins were born.
It was only a three-day quickie but it was pleasant to settle into the old familiar routines we had previously shared before Jamie had branched out to command her own craft. It was really a delight to be quietly scanning the charts then to find a sippy cup of tea at one’s elbow, having been delivered by a crewmate who knew my every nuanced habit or preference.
As I smiled my thanks she struck her familiar pose with her bum-cheeks wedged against the pilot saddle and her knee wedged under the comms panel.
“Has the family been in touch; about you brother that is?” She asked.
I leaned back and wagged my head slowly.
“Not yet. And they’re under instructions not to mention the family rendezvous. We’ll sort it out back on earth. Space comms are notoriously public.”
“You’re going to have to get a scrambler set to encrypt private stuff.”
“I’ve never needed one before.”
“You’ve never had a family before. That gives you a long tail and somebody’s bound to find out. The words hostage or blackmail spring to mind. There’s always a mouth ready to jabber, jabber, jabber.”
“Ayye!” I sighed. “Ain’t that the truth.”
Our chat was interrupted by Earth advising us of our approach protocol and we prepared to make our approach. Jamie took the pilot seat while I put the cups away and logged in our docking intentions. An hour later we were parked in Dennis’s yard and I was chatting to Dennis to arrange my brotherly meeting during the weekend when Dennis’s yard was normally closed.
“Looking forward to meeting him?” Dennis asked.
“Mostly just curious; you know – what he looks like and stuff. He was quite a bit older than me. He was first born, then there was a long gap before I and my sisters turned up ten to fifteen years later.”
“So by the time you were thrown out he was long gone.” Dennis surmised.
“Oh hell yes. He would have been about twenty-six or seven. While growing up, I only saw him at family gatherings for Christmas and such.
I Never even went to his wedding for I was long gone by then. He was thirty something while I was about twenty-one or two by then and doing my vagabond thing with Digger.”
“So. When are you arranging to meet him? The yard’s available from 1800 Sat through to Sunday midnight.”
“I’ve arrange it for Sunday morning at ten, are you okay with that?”
“Are you having anybody else there?”
“Jamie will be loitering nearby but it’ll just be Dafydd and me. I suspect he’s got issues with our mother as well; we might even have common ground.”
“Well good luck. There’s makings for coffee or tea in my secretary’s office.”
The following morning I received a message advising me that Dafydd would rendezvous as agreed so I made my way to Dennis’s yard while Jamie loitered above in Digger, which she had now fully claimed as her own ship.
ooo000ooo
I did not have long to wait. We had agreed to meet in my new ship called Miner and I would let him in via the side gate which was discreetly tucked beside the freight warehouse. His private grav could be parked in a communal carpark, so as not to attract attention. All he had to do was step out and walk a couple of yards to a gate that was remotely controlled from Dennis’s office and several other locations including the control room of my new ship Miner. It served mainly as an emergency fire exit and was rarely used otherwise.
I tested the gate several times while I waited for my brother Dafydd, then his grav appeared and settled in the large communal public carpark. Most of the other businesses were closed for the Sunday but a couple were working and he landed near a group of other gravs as he recognised the gate I had described.
I followed him on the cameras and eventually he stood beside my ship as I lowered the steps.
“Come on up, I offered as I stood at the top of the short companion-ladder. “
“Berwyn?” He asked uncertainly.
“It’s Beverly now. D’ you want tea or coffee.”
“Have you something stronger?”
“Sorry, I don’t drink.”
I noticed his eyes narrow uncertainly and wondered if he was already a victim of some corporate cultures. I did not spot any tell tail signs of alcohol abuse so I put the issue to the back of my mind.
“Can we get straight down to business. Are you prepared to donate some blood to me?”
“Has our mother not told you?”
“She said I had to speak to you.”
“The answer’s yes for you and our brothers-in-law.”
“Oh, that’s a relief.”
“I thought our mother had told you.”
“She doesn’t communicate much to me. She didn’t see me having a long life until you showed up with your blood vaccine.”
“Yes, I got that impression when I met her last time at the hotel.
By now he was in the cabin and looking around at Miner’s technically advanced bridge. Then his eyes fell on the kettle and he declared his preference for coffee.
“It’s instant coffee, I’m afraid. I grew up with it during my pauper youth and the habit’s stuck.”
“Instant’s okay; any biscuits?”
“In the tin in the rack.”
“I’d have thought you’d have had a galley and mess room.”
“Why? It’s usually a one-man operation; or two if Jamie joins me, though she’s got her own ship now.”
“Yes, mother mentioned you had a wife.”
“I don’t have a wife. Jamie’s my bestie and first mate when she’s with me. She’s the mother of our children though. You can meet her if you want.”
Dafydd squinted at me judgementally and I began to wonder if he had the same narrow morality as our mother. I didn’t bother trying to explain; I simply warned him that I lived by a very different set of values to our mother. My community was very close and protective of each other.
He agreed to meet Jamie and stared curiously at the much-scarred hull of Digger as Jamie landed next to us.
“She’s a bit of an old banger isn’t she?”
“She’s sound. I used her for years and Jamie’s happy to use her as seed-corn towards expanding our business. Jamie’s more ambitious than me and want’s to own a fleet of ships.”
“How did she get all those dents and scratches in her hull?”
“I took a lot of suicidal risks when I started out. I worked single-handedly mostly amongst the asteroid belt. The risks were high but I had little to live for. I came close to death a few times. One time I had to live in my spacesuit all the way back to Earth when an asteroid pierced the hull. Fortunately, there was no inspectorate then, sticking their noses into private affairs. With luck and secrecy early prospectors could make a lot of money provided they kept their discoveries secret.”
“Yes, I remember the mineral auctions back then. Good places to get yourself robbed or killed until the mineral exchanges were set up. How did you avoid being followed and claim-jumped?”
“As I said, I went into dangerous places and digger was a tough little patrol ship. She was Great-Grandpa Charlie’s first attempt at long distance exploration and he built her to a very tough spec. She could literally bounce off an asteroid while searching inside the asteroid belt or planetary rings. And of course she was fast. They had considered turning her into a museum piece and she was lying forgotten and neglected when I came across her, so I used our family connections to get the title to her. The rest is history as they say.”
As I explained this, Jamie had parked Digger next to Miner in the yard and then let herself in to my ship.
“What’s goin’ on Babes?” She asked while eyeing up Dafydd suspiciously.
“Believe it or not love, this is my older brother Dafydd. Dafydd, meet my friend and companion Jamie.”
Jamie extended a limp lady-like hand and raised a questioning eyebrow as I explained.
“I’ve agree to give him and my brothers-in-law some vaccine from my own blood.”
“I thought it was agreed; no favouritism. Vaccines were to be given strictly on worth and merit.”
“Are you saying I’m not worthy?” Dafydd bristled at Jamie.
“I hardly know you,” Jamie countered, “it’s just that there is an agreement with the Oxford clinic and Professor Williams the virologist. She’s very philanthropical and the distribution of the vaccine is based strictly on merit. Has she ratified your eligibility?”
Dafydd frowned and turned to me: “But we’re family’ we’re not breaking any rules.”
I hesitated then explained.
“The recipient has to fulfil certain criteria. Academic excellence, engineering achievements, medicine, philanthropical or charitable endeavour and so on. Then he and his immediate family members are eligible, if the Oxford panel agree.”
“That sounds like Nazi Eugenics to me,” Dafydd argued.
“There’s not that much vaccine going around,” Jamie observed, “not when compared with the billions of needy.”
She turned to me and cautioned.
“I think you’re on a slippery slope Bev. Once the charge of nepotism is levelled at you you’ll be vulnerable.”
“Oh come on Jamie, it’s my blood and he’s my brother. He’s family.”
“Family?” Jamie raised that questioning eyebrow again.
Dafydd immediately sensed the censure and protested.
“I wasn’t responsible for what our father did.”
“Na-ah; maybe not; but you didn’t seek to help your brother, a fifteen-year-old kid thrown out on the streets.”
“I wasn’t there, I was working away from home then. I only found out during the next family Christmas and by then Bev had disappeared. And she was sixteen not fifteen.”
Jamie had perfected the art of expression and Dafydds’ defence about age just evinced another withering look. Unwilling to come between my brother and my best friend I settled the argument there and then.
“D’ you think I’m worthy of the vaccine Babe’s.”
“Don’t be daft!”
“It’s a fair question.”
“I’m not thinking of you or Dafydd. I’m thinking of the Oxford board. If you bypass their rules, you discredit the whole system and invite mayhem or worse, some sort of insurrection.”
I sensed Jamie’s hidden agenda here.
She was using a genuine moral and realistic argument to punish my family for abandoning me because of my transgenderism. This was in no small part because she too had suffered during her childhood because of her gender problems. Still in her early twenties she still carried the scars despite her sister having shown the utmost empathy by donating her whole reproductive system for experimental transplant.
I took Jamie aside and quietly expressed my thoughts about this and Jamie tearfully conceded that I was right. She was still loath to forgive however and I got a deeper insight into how much Jamie felt for me and all transgendered issues. The anger still burned hot within her.
I chatted to her softly about unrequited hurt and slowly lanced the boil of frustration that was gnawing at her innards. I can’t say that I was wholly successful but she tempered enough to agree to visit the Oxford board and present my case concerning my brother and brothers-in-law.
Having given my friend something concrete to deflect her anger, she helped me deliver sufficient blood to infuse a small donation of pure blood into my brother’s arm then visit the rest of my family to complete the work with my brothers-in-law.
We did not treat the younger boys because they did not yet need a vaccine and young boys are want to boast about anything they perceive to be advantageous over their contemporaries. I did not want my efforts to become public if I could help it. In truth, Jamie was right, unless the board deemed me or one of my family to be eligible for the vaccine; even though I was the individual who produced the antibodies.
I was convinced that I was entitled to donate my blood as I saw fit but a lifetime of transgendered experience with lawyers had taught me that legal minds functioned very differently from realistic minds.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 23
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Dafydd Bev’s older brother.
Digger Beverly’s first ship.
Miner Beverly’s second, larger and newbuild ship.
With my perceived obligations to my family fulfilled, Jamie and I returned to our life interests of prospecting for useful materials throughout the solar system.
Our extended parental support system of Jamie’s family, our mutual LGBT., friends and, after some cautious experimentation with my own siblings: we evolved a functioning family structure.
They say it takes a village to nurture a child, well our extended family certainly seemed to sort Jamie and my twins. Jamie invariably tailored her space trips to the shorter journeys that mostly involved regular freight trips along the now familiar paths to the well-established bases and mineral mines. Indeed she oft-times took the twins and young Shirley with her.
The ‘shorter’ journeys to the Moon and Mars had literally become commuter journeys and deemed safe for all normal commercial activity.
Journeys to the asteroid belt and the ‘gas giants’ were however still deemed riskier and thus restricted to properly equipped spacecraft.
I for my part, had given up prospecting on remote moons and planets and slowly I had become involved in the long-term plans to ‘terraform’ Venus.
I knew of course, that I would never see Earths sister made ‘habitable’ in my lifetime but it pleased me to at least see some measurable progress and for this to happen, I at least could invest a substantial portion of my wealth in that effort. To this end, I contracted to build a huge spaceship that would never land on a planet but simply transport several cubic miles of toxic sulphur of Venus per voyage and ‘dump’ it amongst the asteroid belt.
There it could remain in a stable orbit around the sun unsullied until or unless future generations found some use for it.
The other two tasks were to enhance Venus’s magnetosphere to deflect the suns radiation and to later deposit water upon its surface after lifting the precious liquid from the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
To enhance Venus’s magnetosphere, the plans to transport molten iron and solidified iron from Io were slowly coming to fruition.
Crashing a cubic mile of solid Iron tangentially into Venus at vastly accelerated speeds would incrementally increase the planet’s rotational speed. Additionally the iron meteorite would melt and percolate to Venus’s core thus adding to Venus’s modest liquid-iron core and increasing her protective magnetosphere.
There was sufficient iron in Io’s core both liquid and metal to eventually give Venus the essential magnetic field to deflect the deadly solar radiation. This process might indeed take hundreds if not a thousand years but it was do-able.
I for one had little else to fulfil my ambitions short of my family, so to me the effort was worthwhile. There were plenty of other philanthropical ‘explorer’ types prepared to join the effort and once a measurable result was detected others were persuaded of the feasibility. These results were however a long way into the future.
I return now to events closer to home and attempts by unscrupulous criminals who somehow hoped to better themselves by gaining control of the vaccine production.
ooo000ooo
After a somewhat extended journey well past the orbit of Pluto I was returning with a somewhat empty and disappointing sample collection in the hold of my ship ‘Miner.’
About once every fourth or fifth voyage, I had taken to venturing further out beyond the confirmed planets just to break up what was becoming a monotony of repeated voyages to familiar places. After this particular voyage I was returning to Earth and had just contacted Earth control to reserve my docking slot and landing location.
The latter was usually Dennis’s yard unless I had something special to declare. This one of those ‘hum-drum’ trips with little of interest to show for my efforts and I anticipated a pretty average landing with no customs checks. Instead, I was redirected to a larger, military landing station close to the historic Australian building yard where my great Grandfather Charlie Sage had established his great enterprise.
When I expressed my curiosity about the diversion I was asked to go to a closed, encrypted channel as per my annotated encryption log. After entering the dated code figures and letters I re-established a private contact channel.
Having ensured my privacy with the military and police, I contacted Dennis on an alternative channel and quoted a few pre-coded words that Dennis immediately confirmed. His voice confirmed by a pre-coded sentence that there was a big alert concerning the vaccine. Dennis then asked.
“Have you contacted Jamie during the last few weeks.”
“No; you know where I’ve been; beyond Pluto. Comms from out there are difficult but not impossible.”
“Then I suggest you speak again to the military at Woomera.”
Intrigued, I did just that and received news I had often dreaded. Jamie was okay but our twins had been kidnapped.
Jamie had immediately surrendered herself to a military base near Oxford, in England for her own security and to demonstrate to the kidnappers that she was not going to be a bargaining chip.
On the encrypted military channel I spoke at length with Jamie and established as much detail as I could about the kidnapping. The hardest part was learning that Shirley, our most trusted baby-sitter, had been left for dead during the brutal attack. She was still in a coma with a fractured skull.
Until she was conscious and hopefully cognoscente of events, the authorities were at a loss as to where to start. Shirley was the only person likely to have seen the kidnappers but she was unconscious at the bottom of the stairs when the police guards found her.
The trail was growing colder by the day while Shirley lay unconscious.
ooo000ooo
When I finally met Jamie, she was of course distraught and cursing herself for ever leaving our twins out of our sight. I offered her support because we had done every reasonable thing possible short of locking ourselves and our twins up in some sort of medieval fortress. The way forward was not through recrimination but forensics ,and patience.
I started by firstly visiting our home, - the crime scene – and quietly running my own experienced eye over the site.
Admittedly, the scene had been totally disturbed by the police and many artifacts removed for examination but my less troubled eye was calm enough to spot a few details that the forensics team had missed. Items from other parts of the house having been relocated or even stolen by somebody who must have been casing the home; inside and out; prior to the deed.
I mentioned them at length to the police who immediately returned with the forensics team to examine the extra locations and thus increase the evidential material.
The most important evidence being my determination where the kidnappers must have severally times entered and left our home before finally succeeding in their endeavour.
“They must have had a key,” the scene of crime officer opined, “no marks on the door lock and it’s a pretty substantial piece of work. They could not have forced it without damaging the door.”
After a couple of days of painstaking work, they concluded that the kidnappers had been using a vacant farmhouse several fields away across the valley to case our farm. They had set up a surveillance post in the bedroom window some half a mile across the valley to establish what sort of routine Shirley was using.
Finally, when they concluded that only Shirley and the twins were home alone, the kidnappers had struck when the guard had briefly gone to the farm gate to collect and check the mail. The guard had returned to find the children gone and Shirley with a fractured skull, lying at the bottom of the stairs.
The kidnapping had all the hallmarks of a very professional operation for the surveillance location in the farmhouse bedroom had been kept scrupulously clean. Additionally, it’s difficult to raid a remote house in the country and then kidnap somebody without leaving tell-tale tracks. The said tracks were duly found in the overgrown farmyard behind the farmhouse across the valley. Here their transport had been parked while they maintained their watches.
As I stood in the empty farmhouse with the scene of crime officer discussing the case, she presented me with a list of potential suspects who might have facilitated the undetectable means of entry into our home. The list gave me pause for thought. It was longer than I had determined and included people who were believed to have made contact with family members outside the farm and perhaps in the small village about three miles down the isolated narrow road that constituted the only way up the valley to our home.
Fortunately, the police had secured many hours of security video from the village garage and the village post-office - cum -grocery store. Our first decent leads were picked up by sifting through videos of any unusual callers or travellers who had passed by. All the local, regular users were quickly identified and eliminated from enquiries and we were finally left with about five potential, unidentified visitors.
These individual’s visits had clustered around the six days before the kidnap took place and warranted our particular attention. The next step was to find out if these five had had any contact with family who regularly visited out home.
Two days after my accompanied visit to the farmhouse the chief investigative officer returned to our home with news.
“We’ve got some good DNA samples from the faeces left by a couple of the idiots who did the surveillance.”
“Uuugh!” I retched, “that sounds disgusting.”
“Needs must,” he replied sounding somewhat satisfied with his work. “One of my keener forensic officers is not so sensitive as her colleagues and she literally waded through shit to identify some of the less degraded ‘jobbies’ to get some useful samples. One DNA sample is distantly related to you while another is of Arabian origin and a third appears to have Congolese connections. That was the hardest to identify, African DNA is much more diverse than Caucasian DNA. But that’s just biological history.”
“So how do you take it forward?” I Pressed.
“We’re on to it already. The really good news is that everybody who receives the vaccine; worldwide that is, and of course all the donors; have already supplied their DNA information so the DNA trail is very clearly marked.”
“Yes, I remember being a party to those discussions when Professor Williams first made the connection between Jamie and I with the immunity. She was adamant that DNA records should be kept for research reasons and medical forensics. I thought it smacked too much of ‘Big Brother’ but it seems she was right.”
“She was; very much so,” the investigative officer affirmed. “We’ve already connected the generational relation to your DNA. He’s a second cousin.”
“There’ll be a few of those then. Great Grandad Charlie had seven kids in later life and they all benefitted from his will.”
“The good news is that the Sage company records and your family tree are pretty complete. We’ve identified all your relatives but locating all of them is the difficulty. Your family has a penchant for diasporas.”
“Guilty as charged superintendent. I’m sure they all have their reasons for falling far from the tree.”
“Yeah, there are a couple who have gone a little bit further though,” the superintendent continued. “You know, illicit stuff.”
“And those will be the ones you’re interested in?” I surmised.
“Seems reasonable to me.” He finished,- and I was forced to agree.
“I presume you have not told anybody else in the family.” I checked.
“No. Only you because you and Jamie are the victims in this. Please don’t tell Jamie though; yet. The less who know the better.”
“Got that,” I reluctantly agreed.
I felt I was betraying Jamie but long experience with prospecting secrecy in the mining game had taught me that loose mouths and looser words invariably fell on unfriendly ears.
ooo000ooo
We decided to leave the search in the hands of superintendent’s capable team, because he’d already demonstrated that he was ‘on the ball.’ Jamie and I would be on immediate call and belay any space trips until our twins were recovered.
We did not have to wait long before the communique arrived with its demands that Jamie or I surrender ourselves into the kidnapper’s custody in exchange for our children’s safe return.
On the eve of its arrival we held an immediate tactical meeting and the police superintendent laid his cards on the table. We discussed several stratagems and finally concluded that the safest for the twins was to agree to their demand for an exchange, namely me for the twins.
“You at least will be able to act and react to any rescue endeavours and respond intelligently to any attempt by us to communicate. Your children are but babes in arms.”
For want of a better plan I reluctantly agreed. The first criterion was to get the twins safe, then examine the chances of my recovery.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 24.
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Dafydd Bev’s older brother.
Digger Beverly’s first ship.
Miner Beverly’s second, larger and newbuild ship.
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Dafydd Bev’s older brother.
Digger Beverly’s first ship.
Miner Beverly’s second, larger and newbuild ship.
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
“You what!” Jamie almost screeched. “Swap yourself for the twins!”
“Yes. It’s just about the only way we can start the ball rolling.”
Jamie turned to the Police Superintendent.
“Did you agree to this?”
“We’ve little choice.” He replied. “We’ve no idea where the twins are being held and the kidnappers obviously see them as viable bargaining chips.”
“They’re right on that bloody count,” Jamie cursed, “but do you see an escape route?”
“I see a more viable escape route. Bev is an adult and capable of proactive endeavour. They’ll always have to be on their guard with her while the twins; well’” He shrugged his shoulder thoughtfully. “In terms of a rescue they would just be so much deadweight.”
I gave Jamie an apologetic shrug as I spread my arms. Somehow we had to get the twins safe before we could get the ball rolling. Jamie frowned but reluctantly conceded the point. With that painful hurdle cleared, we accompanied the superintendent to his operations room and met his small team of abduction specialist negotiators.
“I keep the team small and tight-knit to avoid leaks about any plans or information we have,” he explained as Jamie and I looked slightly askance at the paucity of staff.
The team turned as one when we entered and they made various welcoming remarks to accompany their reassuring smiles. I sensed Jamie physically relax as a sense of progress took us both and she squeezed my hand hopefully. The superintendent also noticed Jamie and my relieved sighs and he explained further.
“We’re not completely stymied yet. We’ve made definite progress concerning the twins’ location. Our hardest evidence has them in central Africa.”
“How the hell were they taken out of this country?” Jamie demanded. “They were supposed to be enjoying some sort of police protection!”
“My job is location and recovery,” he replied; “any fuckups are the fault of the protection squad. I appreciate your righteous anger, but recriminations at this stage won’t help much. My small team are well experienced in these sort of abductions and kidnaps.”
I appreciated his honesty and began to feel I could work with him so I nodded slowly whilst asking what sort of success rate he had enjoyed.
“Not brilliant” he confessed. “Most of the successful recoveries have involved custody battles in different counties. Those success rates vary mostly by long term results, and usually start with court battles. We’ve only had about half dozen terrorist/political abductions and those were much harder. Usually they were snatch operations after failed negotiations. Four were successful, one was partially successful and one; the first one; was a failure. The hostage was shot before negotiations were even attempted.”
Having absorbed this information Jamie and I fell silent then she asked.
“Was your team involved in the failed attempt.”
“Yes,” the superintendent admitted ruefully. “It’s been a steep learning curve. Mistakes were made and we have all learned by them.”
“Were any of the abductions involving babies or just children?”
“No. This is the first one involving infants in arms and terrorists. It’s new ground.”
“Bargaining chips,” I offered and he nodded as he added.
“First we have to locate them and make sure any hostage trading is safe. We don’t want to find ourselves entrapped in their country.”
“Are you in contact with them?” Jamie asked.
“They are communicating via the government and Professor Williams’s clinic in Oxford. We get all information second hand.”
“Filtered by the suits in Whitehall?” I wondered cynically.
He nodded as his expression showed clear dissatisfaction with the set up.
“Jamie and I will need better communication than that, we’ll need to see the babies are safe and sound before we enter into any discussions.”
“That means organising a secure exchange that ensures we get your babies back safely.” Jamie observed.
“Obviously; that’s not the problem. It’s getting me back safely after the exchange. To tell the truth Babes, I’m at a loss to work out why they want me specifically. Your blood is much more proactive and more plentiful. There’s something we’re not getting here.”
“Well, the first step is to organise some sort of exchange, preferably in a safe location.” The superintendent declared.
“Definitely in a safe location.” I emphasised. Certainly not in darkest Africa.”
And that was the first step we made.
ooo000ooo
Under the hot Mediterranean sun our plane touched down in the island of Malta. The blast of hot air hit us like a furnace as the cabin door opened and I squinted at the glaring light.
“Ouch!” I murmured under my breath as I made my way down the steps.
We had negotiated hard to get the exchange done in Malta. The sea made for a secure boundary that deterred any sudden attacks to bypass the exchange and the Maltese government had agreed to be an ‘honest broker’ in return for the full vaccination of the whole island's population. Malta is small and this logistical deal had been easily arranged.
Down on the tarmac we were greeted by some serious faced Maltese officials, somebody who looked like a British consular type and several African people, of whom two were women holding our twins.
After scanning the arrangement, we paused and waited for the Africans to state their demands. In the brief silence it was hard not to ignore the Maltese soldiers as they stood in a circle surrounding us with assault rifles held ready and watching everybody with expressionless eyes. It was impossible to determine whether they had some sort of rescue plan or not.
Cautiously, we simultaneously separated from our respective negotiators and approached a red dividing line marked out on the airport tarmac. The two nurses glared at me as they passed me with my babies in their arms but we did not say anything. I just needed to make sure my babies were safe. After crossing the line I stopped after a dozen yards to look back and make sure my twins were being delivered.
“Keep walking!” One of the Africans called to me so I resumed moving and eventually I arrived into their custody. Immediately a gun was pointed at me as their radio crackled that the babies were transferred. The two women returned back to the African side and I was ordered to get on their plane. I still could not see any potential attempt to rescue me and I did as ordered.
On entering I was told I was not in any danger and that it was just a commercial arrangement to ensure fairer dispensation of any vaccine that derived from my blood.
“And what do you mean by ‘fairer’?” I asked.
“The people of Africa are not receiving their fair share.” Their spokesman claimed.
“And which of you came to that conclusion, or more accurately; how did you reach that conclusion?”
“We can show you our figures.”
“Your figures?” I queried, “and what basis have you used to determine your figures.”
He immediately fell to blustering and accusing me of stealing Africa’s share which I found ludicrous, especially as it was my blood to start with. In front of his gangster associates, I asked him to reveal how much blood I donated every two months and how many vaccines were derived. It transpired that he had little idea. He did however reveal that he and his people had never received any.
“And who do you call ‘your people’?” I pressed.
“My people?,” he asked, “my people are the people of Northeast Congo, the tribes that are isolated by the so-called Democratic union.”
“And how come you are speaking for them?” I asked bluntly.
“Somebody has to speak for them.”
“Who chose you?” I asked then added. “I’ve never heard of any separatist organisation being involved in any elections in central Africa. From my experiences of tribal customs, it’s usually some sort of council of tribal chiefs, usually elders. You don’t look old enough.”
“I may not be old enough, but I’m powerful enough,” he riposted while waving his pistol and tapping the assault rifle slung over his shoulder.
I shook my head and sneered.
“It’s no good waving that stupid gun about or threatening me with it. Bullets don’t stop viruses or bacteria. If you want my blood, you’ll need me alive. There’ll be no blood at all if you kill me. Or are you thinking of only getting enough blood out of me for yourself?”
I let the question hang portentously and caught the brief flash of uncertainty in his eyes as his companions fell ominously silent. They were beginning do their own arithmetic.
My blood was needed for everybody.
“Everybody will get their share.” He declared confidently.
“How?” I asked.
“You know how it’s done!” He charged.
“Correction; I know what is done; I don’t know how it’s done,” I lied and then continued. “It takes a team of virologists and blood specialists with highly specialised laboratory equipment to derive a viable vaccine in usable quantities. Do you have such a team?”
“We can assemble one.”
“I don’t believe you.” I challenged him.
“You just provide the blood; you don’t have to believe me.”
“No; but they do.” I countered, motioning to his followers.
Once again, there was a pregnant silence as his companions exchanged uncomfortable looks. I pressed my suite.
“Listen to me, I know that a single blood transfusion from my elderly body only produces about 200 cc of usable blood. When infused as blood directly into another, that produces about 200 doses of immunity and that only to people with suitable blood groups. However, when the blood has been treated and used to produce vaccine; that produces thousands of doses, but only from a suitable laboratory with proper sterile procedures.
It’s your choice, just you, or your tribe?”
I sensed the mood amongst his henchmen shifting. Having guns over their shoulders gave them a sense of superiority and power but my observation about bullets not stopping diseases had hit a nerve.
Realising this I pushed my observations a little bit further with a little white lie.
“You do realise that bringing me into contact with your gang seriously endangers them don’t you.”
He stared at me while his features greyed.
“What d’you mean?”
“My immunity means I am a very effective carrier of the disease. I could be infecting you and everybody here even as you speak. I can see that you’ve got several thousand in your camp but only enough blood from me for a couple of hundred. Now that you’ve probably brought the disease amongst you, you’ll have to decide who lives and who dies; - your move.”
The silent tension started to develop into mutterings of fear that grew into louder rumbles of discontent as the growing crowd now began to do their own arithmetic. I turned from the leader to the crowd.
“It takes about three weeks for the disease to incubate and your leader probably introduced it amongst you when he kidnapped my two babies. That was two weeks ago so you’ve got about a week to prepare. I there a doctor or even a nurse amongst you?”
A slight disturbance at the back of the mob produced a trio of careworn women and they were brought to the front. I looked at them and asked.
“Doctors?”
One of them nodded and the other two revealed themselves to be nurses. The three had been kidnapped from a clinic two years earlier and forced to treat war wounds mostly.
I didn’t need to say much more. The doctor had quickly caught on to my idea of fomenting fear that would destabilise the gang and create discord.”
When I asked her to confirm my words she nodded silently. She was possibly one of the few people present that was trusted by almost everyone. After all she had treated most of them for wounds or sickness and developed a trust born of medical care.
Her nod was all she had to do and it caused the assembly to erupt into panic. Lots began to leave in some belated misconception that distance would protect them. The rebel leader fired his gun into the air but that served only to intensify the panic. The nervous trickle of dissenters turned into a panicked flood as the gathering literally melted into the surrounding jungle.
Within minutes there remained but a score of his henchmen, the medical trio and me.
“So now what?” I pressed the rebel leader.
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 25
Antibodies 24.
© Copyright BG Taff
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Dafydd Bev’s older brother.
Digger Beverly’s first ship.
Miner Beverly’s second, larger and newbuild ship.
Digger Beverly’s first ship.
Miner Beverly’s second, larger and newbuild ship.
The rebel leader stared at me with a mixture of anger and fear creasing his features. I could see the mixed emotions working through his mind so a rested my butt against a table and folded my arms to let his uncertainty gain a tighter hold.
“You’d better donate your blood immediately!” He ordered but I could easily detect the uncertainty in his demeanour.
“Okay,” I agreed loudly for all his score of henchmen to hear, “but you’d better get the nurses to advise your henchmen as to who gets first dibs. Two hundred out of a couple of thousand rebels – or whatever you call yourselves. Good luck with that!”
I watched his posture slowly loosen as he sensed the dissention among his cronies. They had clearly heard my words and their maths was certainly good enough to draw their own conclusions.
For my part I approached the three medical staff and held out my arm symbolically.
“Well Doc; we’d best get on with it. The sooner the better.
A ripple of uncertain discontent passed amongst the score of henchmen and I turned questioningly to their leader.
“Where’s your sterile clinic.”
His eyes widened in panic as the circumstances closed in on him.
“No wait! We’ll need your vaccine!”
“Well I can’t organise that here.” The care-worn, weary doctor sighed. “I’ve only got the most basic equipment for rudimentary first aid.”
“There must be someway to make a vaccine!” He almost whined.
“Well I don’t know of one,” The doctor added knowingly as she waved her hand towards the rudimentary hospital which was essentially a grass roofed first aid hut without even running water.
“That’s all we’ve got, it’s not exactly Smith-Clyne or Phyzer laboratories is it?” The doctor almost growled her sarcastic objection.
I turned to their rebel leader and sneered with disgust.
So your are building a nation with nothing but guns and death; no hospitals and I suppose no schools either.
“They’ll come later;” he tried to sound inspirational.
I almost smiled at his naivety but quickly recovered my mood of censure to advance my argumentative inroad into his leadership. I scanned around the camp to recognise all the signs of social failure where even the most basic precautions against disease and dirt were conspicuously absent. Now was the time to strike as I scanned my eyes around and slowly wagged my head before declaring loudly for everybody’s benefit.
“I give your gang two weeks before everybody is dead - except of course, your friends who obviously you’ll elect to receive my blood.”
I could almost feel any bonds of loyalty between the groups that comprised the gang, beginning to loosen and stretch so I carefully adopted a theatrical posture of resignation while my facial expression darkened forebodingly. It behoved me now to stay quiet and let the uncertainty take root.
The leader slowly realised what I was doing, or more correctly, what I’d done. His eyes flashed briefly with anger that imperceptibly shaded to a grudging admiration as he snarled an order to have me secured in the only concrete blockhouse in the camp. He was too late though for even as I was deposited in the ‘prison’ I heard arguments and shouting breaking out in several different languages.
oo000ooo
Before I had even settled on the only seat available, a ramshackle wooden bed frame, I could hear the leader trying to hold some sort of calm conversation with their doctor.
“But there must be a way.”
“No” replied the doctor emphatically, “look around you. It takes a fully equipped laboratory to produce vaccine from his blood. We’ve got nothing but the most rudimentary bits here. Even the sterile needles from the hospital have been broached by drug abusers.
Look at all those torn boxes on the trash dump. I haven’t even got the needles to transfuse any of his blood.”
I heard more cursing by the rebel leader in his own tongue and forced myself to stay silent. While the man was stressed out and angry, anything could happen, and in a fit of rage he might take it out on me. So I sat and waited as the arguments moved across the compound towards the large hut that served as their only meeting place. Despite the distance I could still hear the feint sounds of dissension. Even as the day wore on, there was little I could do but settle back on the makeshift bed with its woven palm mattress.
After a short while the doctor entered and brought me some supper. As I ate, she talked at length about the reasons why the rebels were at war with the Central Republic’s government. Eventually, in the pitch blackness of the tropical, jungle , she left.
I did not sleep well for the sound of small creatures scrabbling around sounded like rats though I could not be sure. Then I heard a sudden soft thump, followed by some panicked squeaking, followed by what I suspected to be a snake either coiling around the ‘rat’ or a snake slithering hopefully away with the ‘rat’ in its mouth. There was a deathly silence after that but I chose to keep my footwear on while lying on the bed. Tropical nights are long by their very nature but this one seemed inordinately so.
I was never so glad to meet the dawn!
Eventually, the door was freed and my captors brought some food. In the light I noted the tell-tale serpent tracks in the dust and pointed them out to the captors.
“There was a snake here least night; look.”
“What type?” He asked as he acknowledged the tracks on the floor.
“I don’t bloody know, it was dark, but it killed and ate a rat I think.”
“It’s no matter they’re moving you today.”
“Any idea how or where?” I asked him.
“They’re going to negotiate your release for vaccines.”
I seized my chance to spread more fear and uncertainty.
“You’d better move bloody quickly; you’ve all been exposed for nearly two weeks now. Three weeks and it’ll be too late, you’ll be over-exposed and fatally infected.”
He almost leapt back and out through the door as I ate what he’d brought for my breakfast. After more distant argument, the leader appeared with the doctor.
“We’ve negotiated your release in exchange for vaccines. Don’t try spreading any more panic!”
“Who are you negotiating with?” I pressed. ”It had better be with some reputable organisation. Half the governments in Africa are no more legitimate than you!”
“It’s with the United Nations, you know the doctor.”
“Who is he?”
“It’s a she, somebody called Doctor Williams, from Oxford.”
“Oh yes, I think she’s the virologist who developed the vaccine. Did you demand that she comes or did she volunteer?”
“She volunteered. She seems to count you very valuable.”
“I won’t lie, yes she does hold me valuable, it was my blood that enabled her to make the vaccine break through. Though other volunteer, donor’s bloods have since proven to be suitable.”
“Will the vaccine work?” He asked.
“I don’t know, when will it get here?”
“They said tomorrow morning at Nairobi airport. That’s where they’ve agreed the exchange.”
“It’ll take us two days to get there by truck.”
“They’re sending a helicopter. The Nigerian air-force have offered because they’ve got no beef with my people and they’re neutral.”
I reflected silently as to how I and others used anti-gravs to reach for the planets and these people were still using helicopters. Still, if it prevented wars and conflict from spreading to civilised countries, I had no beef. I was quietly grateful that there appeared to be a peaceful settlement, a simple trade-off. Me for the vaccine.
With my mind more or less at rest, I settled down until the well-known ‘wok – wok – wok’ of a large, ancient chinook came circling in and picked a spot to land. I peered through the chinks in the door and watched as a military man stepped out and paused until the rebel leader identified himself. I heard them confirming that the vaccine was being held in Nairobi airport and that they would make the exchange there.
The military Nigerian man was to wait at the rebel base while I was exchanged for the vaccine then they would bring the vaccine to the rebel base and he would return to Nairobi. I only hoped that the decades old chopper was up to it. I’d heard some fearsome stories about flying in Africa.
Nervously, I climbed into the ‘wick-wock’ and we clattered skywards as I took the ‘dickie-seat’ behind the co-pilot. Speech was barely possible with the roar of the engines so I simply sat tight and watched Africa rushing by underneath. Eventually the jungle turned to agriculture and I realised we had crossed into Kenya. On the apron of the Kenyan Airforce base I saw Doctor Williams waving but I could not make myself visible and simply waited to step down the rear loading ramp.
“Are you okay?” Were her first words.
“Apart from sleeping with snakes and rats, yes.”
“Is it true there’s a doctor being held there against her will?”
“Against her will? I don’t know, but probably; there’s also two nurses.”
“What are the conditions like?”
“It’s a mess. The camp is filthy with little basic hygiene and the rebels look a pretty sick lot.”
“Did you get any inkling of the mood in the camp?”
“The rebels comprise several different tribes who have been forced to join together to prevent illegal mining and logging on their lands. They say foreign organisations are stealing their wealth.”
She nodded sympathetically but declared it had nothing to do with her.
“They’re right though,” I added, “I saw plenty of evidence of logging and mining though I can’t say whether it was legal or not.”
“You can tell the UN negotiator, she’s in the commanding officer’s office.”
“Fat lot of good that’ll do. The rebel leader seemed like a reasonable man to me, even if a desperate one.”
“Well, you’re the only person who’s come face to face with him, so you might be able to advocate his case.”
I gave her a wry smirk as we approached the group captain’s office and a sentry snapped to attention as he commanded us to halt.
“It’s alright guardsman, theses are the people we are expecting.”
A high ranking Airforce marshal emerged with a lady whom I deemed to be the united nations negotiator. When Doctor Williams confirmed my identity they wasted no time in ushering me into their air-conditioned offices.
“Did they harm you in anyway?” The marshal immediately asked as we settled to sit around a large desk.
“No,” I replied dismissively, “only my pride was abused when I had to sleep overnight in some pretty grotty surroundings.”
“Go on,” the marshal urged. “How well armed are they and how many; an estimate will do.”
I looked askance.
“What do you need to know that for? We’re not going to bloody war with them!”
“They’ve attacked the mining organisations.” He intoned somewhat malevolently. “They need to know their place.”
“They are in their place!” I countered as my mood deteriorated. “They’re native tribes on their native land. Who gave the mining organisations and loggers the rights to invade their land and just take the minerals and timber?”
The Air-Marshall fell silent as he realised he was stepping into areas outside his boundaries. He turned to the United Nations representative negotiator who spoke up.
“The mining companies negotiated the rights with the democratic government’s representative’s fairly.”
“Who’s getting the benefits?” I demanded. “I didn’t see any hospitals or schools anywhere around their base. Nor when we flew back in the chopper. And another thing, all the roads I saw went to logging camps and mines; not to villages.”
“How could you know that?” The UN rep countered.
“You forget lady. My whole life has been devoted to exploring for minerals and mining them. I saw several exploratory boreholes and test trenches. I know a mine when I see one and anybody can recognise hills denuded of trees as ‘clear felling’. That’s guaranteed to desertify the land! These tribes are being robbed and raped.
I suggest that you send the vaccines as promised and not send troops. There have been enough broken promises. Besides, there’s a high-ranking Republican general isolated at the rebel base and he’s expecting to come home.”
ooo000ooo
Antibodies 26
Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss. Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends. Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)
Dr Williams Virologist
Shirley Jamie’s niece.
Dafydd Bev’s older brother.
Digger Beverly’s first ship.
Miner Beverly’s second, larger and newbuild ship.
Chapter 26
I waited at the Air Marshall’s office while the UN negotiator busied herself communicating on her fancy satellite phone to some high-level secretary in Geneva or New York; I knew not which, nor cared. Eventually I sighed impatiently as she turned to me and offered a deal.
The WHO (World Health organisation) is prepared to release these vaccines provided the general is released by the terrorists and returned unharmed to the Democratic Republics’ governmental offices.
I shook my head in wonderment as I pointed out.
“He’s already released me as a sign of good will, what more can the man do? And I wouldn’t go around bandying the word terrorist so loosely. So far, he’s operated through negotiations to get vaccines for his people.”
“The mining companies claim he’s a terrorist who’s been attacking their camps.”
“Huh! I’d call some of the mining companies and loggers to be more like terrorists. The way the drive their machinery and toss their explosives around is positively lethal.
He’s still attacked civilian and industrial operations in the North-eastern territory of the republic. He’s killed dozens of operators.
“Yeah, and I’ll bet a lot of those so called ‘operators are operating illegally or at least by offering huge bribes to government officials. Terrorism is as terrorism does, and he did what he felt he had to do. Don’t forget. I’ve seen the mining destruction first hand!
And another thing, - “I pressed.
“What?” She asked.
“I’ve seen lots of underaged kids working in those illegal mines, yet I didn’t see any kids in his camp, leastways not kids carrying guns or assault rifles.”
“What are you implying?”
“It strikes me that his so-called rebel band are essentially volunteers. There are no enforced conscripts. Not like those ‘Lord’s Day Believers’ who rampaged through northern Kenya and Uganda. They forced young kids to take up arms and murder innocent villagers. This guy hasn’t. He only seems to want to see fair play.”
“Well, we’ll determine that when we deliver the vaccines.”
“We’d better hurry then. I advised. The virus isn’t waiting.”
“What d’you mean we? Who said anything about you returning to the jungle. You’re too damned valuable.” The UN lady declared.
“I gave the man my word, and I’ll not be made a liar for political ends.”
“So, what good can you do? They’ll have the vaccine and you’ll be surplus. They might even decide to detain you.”
“Me-thinks not.” I countered. There’s a story to tell here about the political corruption that’s depriving these people of their mineral rights and property. Somebody needs to tell it.”
The UN representative scowled irritably but I stubbornly pressed my argument and she eventually felt forced to agree. She turned reluctantly to several of her team and instructed them to accompany us; then we clambered into the helicopter and clattered skywards.
Once again, I gazed down, and after crossing the border into the central republic, I commenced pointing out illegal mines to the UN members who had reluctantly joined us.
“As you can readily see, there are thousands of primitive mines being dug by prospectors and several larger commercial operations. The whole of this north-eastern section of the province is being raped and nothing is being done to stop it. The rebels have legitimate grievances, and nothing is being done to stop it. They are the legitimate tribal owners of the jungles and the land, and they are being robbed.
“The government owns the land,” she opined.
I gave her an ‘old’ look then twisted my lips into a wry, cynical smirk before replying.
“These tribesmen are the people, and the people are the government. Try looking at your United Nations Charter occasionally.”
She fell silent and that silence reigned until we landed.
Before the rotors had stopped, the ‘rebels’ had encircled our craft and the leader was tapping furiously on the hull. The pilot turned to me while ignoring the UN rep and remarked.
“You’d better show your face, he knows you.”
“And trusts me,” I added as I slid back the pilot window and looked down.
The rebel leader squinted up from amidst the settling dust cloud and shouted above the hubbub.
“Have you got the vaccine?”
“Yes. Call your men to order and bring some organisation around here. The pilot will only open the ramp once he’s sure of the safety of his chopper.”
I watched as he stepped back into the thinning dust cloud and quickly brought the crowd to order. I mused that it wasn’t as disorderly a mob as first appeared. The tribesmen were just desperate for they knew that they only had a matter of days to treat their various communities and villages. A few more seconds caused the dust to disperse, and hundreds of villagers started to emerge from the surrounding forests. I shouted to their leader that I was coming out via the cabin door and the ramp would only be lowered once I was happy with our security.
Before he could argue I stepped away from the pilot’s cabin window and opened the door to clamber down the extendable ladder.
“Where’s the doctor?” I demanded.
He turned and indicated Doctor Williams walking from the first-aid tent with the original ‘Medicines San Frontiers doctor and her attendant nurses. I nodded my satisfaction and waved my hand to her as the UN Rep followed me down the ladder. When she stopped beside me, I explained.
“This is Doctor Williams the virologist, she’ll be your liaison and ‘go-to’ contact for all medical issues. The villagers trust her.”
“Where are you going?”
“To speak with the leader and the general they’re holding hostage.”
“D’you think they’ll release him?” She asked.
“That was the deal. If he releases the general, he demonstrates good faith. Just see to it that your people do likewise,” I replied as I motioned to the leader to take me to his hut.
We found the general none the worse for his having been held hostage and I signalled to the chopper captain that it was okay to lower his rear ramp.
Once some sort of regular organisation had been established it was quick work to set up an extra demountable structure and within the hour the ‘rebels’ were queuing up for their jabs. The rebels proved true to their word and the general was released to fly back with the U.N. rep to Nairobi.
“Aren’t you coming back with us?” She asked.
“I’ll get the next flight tomorrow. I want to get a comprehensive list of what’s wanted around here.”
“I’ve pretty much got that. She offered.”
I nodded but remained where I was as she boarded the chopper. I wanted to see for myself more of the problems the villagers were facing concerning the exploitation of their lands. I watched the chopper ascend then went to talk again with the so-called rebel leader.
“Have you got a satellite phone/” I asked him.
“Yes, but I don’t use it much, it attracts unwanted attention.”
“The general?” I asked knowingly.
He frowned and nodded, and I gathered his meaning.
“I want to contact my companion and my mobile has no signal out here.”
“What for?” He asked suspiciously as he handed it to me.
“I want to organise a contact system to help your villagers organise logistics.” I explained as I hefted the weighty sat-phone in my hand.
“To supply weapons?” He frowned though I read the hope in his eyes.
“Not necessarily. I was thinking more of essentials like food and stuff. This thing weighs more than a bloody brick.”
“It’s a bit antiquated but it’s all we’ve got. Will you bring us weapons as well.” He pressed.
I handed the phone back and explained.
“I’m waiting to see what the general does in the next couple of days. If he thinks he’s coming back loaded for bear, I’ll put a stop to his schemes.”
The leader shrugged philosophically and nodded towards the flimsy structure that served for their council house.
“We’ll have to put you up in here.”
“I won’t be sleeping much in one place. I want to try and get some idea of what minerals are being extracted to prepare some sort of case. I’ve recognised the copper and lithium ores but there were some pits on that hill we flew over that I’d like to check out.”
He turned to me and frowned.
“It’ll be difficult to check that range of hills. The mining company has powerful connections.”
“Oh; I’m sure he has,” I agreed. “But let’s not be too fearful, I’ve got connections too.”
“But I’ve seen armed helicopter gunships occasionally land over there when their big bosses some by to inspect.”
“Really?” I looked innocently askance. “We’ll we’d better make some suitable precautions then, hadn’t we?”
“What sort of precautions?” He asked suspiciously.
“Oh,” I smiled nonchalantly. “Don’t be worrying too much about me, I get along pretty well on my own.”
“Well, you be bloody careful; the mining company helicopters have shot at villagers who’ve come to close.”
“Have they really? Just a mo’ while I call up my mate on your sat-phone.”
He surrendered the phone somewhat reluctantly and I smiled slightly as I felt it’s weight again. If battery weight were any indication, this bloody phone would reach Pluto. Instead, however I dialled up Jamie. She answered almost immediately, which surprised me slightly.
“Hi Nana! How’s darkest Africa?”
“Very dark,” I intoned ominously.
“Oh!” She paused before asking.
“D’you want me?”
“You could be useful. Where are you now?”
“Lunar inbound; ‘bout two hours out.”
The rebel leader picked up my conversation and leaned in curiously.”
“If your friend is coming from the north, he’d better be careful, there’s a Russian mercenary army in Sudan and they’re not fussy about who they shoot.”
I smiled somewhat patronisingly and enlightened the rebel leader.
“She’s inbound from the moon. She’ll be approaching from our zenith. A terrestrial ‘bulls-eye’”
The rebel leader stared with surprise.
“The moon?!”
“Yes.”
“Is he in a spaceship?”
“Jamie’s a ‘she’, and yes, to your earlier question. Of course, she’s in a spaceship if she’s coming from the moon.”
“Are you with the navy or something?” He asked nervously.
“No. I’m a family member of the Taff mining corporation but I’m not one of the well-publicised sons or grandsons. I don’t work directly for the mining corporation, and I not share-holder or director. I keep a very low profile.”
“So how come you have a spaceship at your beck and call?”
“Grandfather rights. My grandmother recognised what I was at an early age and realised I was destined to be pilloried by her family. As soon as I hit eighteen, she gave me a small spaceship and suggested I make myself scarce by prospecting in the solar system. This was before the regulatory space licensing regime was set up. Consequently, I kept my grandfather rights.”
“And what was it your grandmother saw in you?”
“Nothing important.” I lied. “Suffice to say I’m my own boss and answerable to no-one.”
“So, this spaceship is coming here to pick you up.”
“Yes.”
“You’d better avoid the mining camps over there then. They shoot on sight.”
“Thanks for the heads up.” I nodded as I spoke again into the ‘brick.’
“Jamie; stop by Dennis’s yard first and get some side arms. Also make sure our main armament is primed and ready.”
“Watch’a boss, we expecting trouble?”
“Possibly, - no! Make that probably.”
“Are you going to arrest or attack the illegal mines?” The rebel leader asked.
“No. We can survey the whole country with the ship’s equipment. I’m just going to document the scale of theft and criminality.”
I saw the glimmer of hope brighten in his eyes and I took the coffee that he proffered to me.
“Can you get our case heard?”
“I Don’t know but if I cause a feathers to be ruffled, it will cause questions to be asked or complaints to be raised. Any publicity is better than no publicity at all. The trouble is, the United Nations is rotten to the core.”
As we drank the coffee, I explained several stratagems I had in mind, and he prepared what little he could to meet Jamie’s arrival. It was midday when Jamie descended out of the sun and the rebel troops were almost blinded as they tried to study Jamie’s approach. The rebel leader turned to me as Jamie touched down as light as a feather.
“I’m impressed, no dust, no clatter. I’m willing to bet that that those mining gangsters have not even noticed.”
“They will have it they’ve got lookouts watching. It won’t matter anyway. I’m leaving right now.”
I waved to Doctor Williams and asked her if she was coming. She replied that she had about two more hours vaccinating to do then she would be ready. I turned to Jamie and suggested she hovered about three meters off the ground to dissuade any unwelcomed boarders. The rebel leader looked disappointed and asked if he could look inside the spaceship.
“Only if you disarm.” I replied then added. “I’ll arrange for Jamie to lower the hoist then I’ll board first.”
“You do realise I could blow you to pieces with my artillery gun, don’t you?”
“I doubt it. She’s a working mining craft built from very strong material I don’t see anything resembling a 150mm howitzer around here. She’s stronger than a tank and built to bounce against asteroids and comets. If she crashed into a rock, it would take a very hefty blow to rupture her armoured hull.”
His eyes widened with curiosity.
“So why all the protection?”
“We get into some pretty dangerous situations and there’s also solar radiation to consider. My ship is called ‘Miner’ and she’s built to go where others aren’t. Her armoured outer shell is 250 mm of titanium, and her inner skins include copper and lead to resist radiation.”
“That’s a lot of weight. How does she fly?”
“That’s the secret of the antigravity engine. My family still holds the secret.”
“While the rest if the world uses rockets and jets.”
“Bluntly, yes. My ancestors were pretty badly treated back in the day and our family secret keeps the gender bullies at bay. You know, the male discrimination thing.”
“Yes. I’ve read my history. So, you’re related to Charlie Sage.”
I nodded casually and left him to ponder as I showed him the Miner’s innards. He stared appraisingly at Jamie then turned his gaze away hastily as Jamie gave him a glare and fingered her machine pistol. With that, Doctor Williams emerged from the makeshift first-aid post, and we prepared to leave. As the rebel leader departed, I reassured him that I would make an accurate record of the destruction from what was obviously uncontrolled mining.
To this end, as soon as we were airborne, I deliberately loitered low over the mining camp and made a detailed recording of the environmental destruction whilst describing the obvious signs of illegal operations that were definitely outside the remit of any legitimate license.
It wasn’t long before we heard bullets pinging off our armoured hull then a mining company survey helicopter ascended and threatened us with a missile. We had nothing to fear for their missile was designed to bring down an aircraft. Our ship ‘Miner’ was effectively a tank. We remained at ten meters altitude over the camp and the helicopter eventually carried through his threat and fired the missile.
An anti-aircraft missile will not harm a ‘tank’ with 250mm of armour plate and to demonstrate our invulnerability, Jamie veered sideways towards the chopper and just grazed the spinning rotor causing the chopper to lose lift and wobble uncontrollably to the ground. It landed heavily but upright and did not catch fire.
Doctor Williams gave a screech of terror, but I just frowned at Jamie and admonished her for I knew there was little danger.
“Naughty, naughty! Jamie. Stop showing off.”
“I just thought I’d give them a little warning Nana. We could make electronic copies of our observations and drop one down to them while also giving one to the tribesmen.”
“Good idea Babes,” I agreed.
This done, we delivered the video recordings to the ‘rebel leader’ and to the downed helicopter then returned to our base at Dennis Potter’s yard.
Only two days later our report went viral, and the UN felt compelled to respond. Jamie and I considered our job well done.
The end.